Nausea is....

Here goes again, another emotion/sensation I believed I have felt before now but haven't. After my cocky post this morning Mr.C (Chemo, not cancer, cancer is pacman, try to keep up) dealt me an almighty blow in the form of debilitating nausea. All day I have been lying perfectly still trying to hold down water, crackers, my pills. Now you're all probably thinking 'yeah, thats what all nausea is like' but no. I've done my fair share of binge drinking, I've traveled to some pretty filthy places, I've had salmonella among other food poisoning experiences. This is not the same. I think its because this one comes with the added mental images of the drips going into your veins, the syringes, the pills, the blood the smells of the alcohol swabs, the hand sanitiser, the latex gloves, the taste of the saline, of the marzipan mouthwash to prevent oral thrush, the red liquid which last night leaked (or exploded) from everywhere it can leak from... you cant get it out of your head. Once again, this needs to be a case of mind over matter but I'm struggling. Even writing this is turning my stomach. I have been trying to do the online supermarket shopping since 945am (one less thing for nick to think about). It's now 750pm. I open the page, close it again, lie still sipping water and popping pills for an hour. Then I start again. That's nausea.

The anti-sickness tablets are probably curbing it, it would probably be worse without them but at the moment I hate them. They were given to me with such promise that CINV (Chemotherapy induced nausea and vomiting - see, I'm a pro! And i didn't even study) is a thing of the past. That the drugs to counteract it are so foolproof that it gets brushed over and not elaborated on in the list of side effects. Not so Mr. Oncologist, not so. More weight needs to be given to this in the pre-chemo chats. I hope its just me, I hope not everyone feels like this. I also hope it passes and I'm not facing 6 months of it non-stop. It's very difficult to maintain any sort of normal life when you're trying not to throw up.

Speaking of normal life, listen to this for something you don't hear every day... Yesterday during chemo I sat for a brief period beside a 67 year old lady who is battling breast cancer (I wonder at what point of cancer do you start saying 'battling' cancer rather than 'has' cancer. It's like at what age do we start saying someone 'had a fall' instead of 'fell'?!). She told me the most important thing I could do was to shave off all my pubic hair. 'Otherwise it falls out all over the house and its just disgusting'.  Hmmmm. SOMEONE GET THIS LADY SOME CLOTHES. On that note I'll leave you all and get back to my staring at the wall (tv makes me nauseous).