End-Of-Chemo Anxiety

Naturally, reaching the end of a course of chemotherapy is supposed to be a happy thing, and it is. Now that you’re not getting poisoned every three weeks, you can look forward to all kinds of things, like eating salad, mingling with crowds, and your hair growing back.

But at the same time…

I’ve been doing this since early January. Chemo came in with the new year. Now we’re on British Summer Time (Daylight Savings Time, for my US homies). The weather is warm, leaves are coming out on the trees. It’s not exactly what you’d call the end of an era but my life––my routines, my activities––have revolved around chemo for most of the winter.

It’s not that I’m not glad it’s over. Believe me, I am. I want to go out, I want to eat salad, I want to go to the gym. I even want to go to the dentist (I broke a tooth).

But at the same time…

There’s a little anxiety that maybe six rounds aren’t enough. Maybe I need one or two more, just to make sure. Even though scans at the halfway mark showed enormous progress in killing off the malignant cells, maybe I should have just one or two more infusions, just to be on the safe side. Seeing as how I can’t take off and nuke it from orbit.

Not to mention I’m losing chemo brain and chemo fatigue. Now when I’m stupid and tired, I’ll have to find something else to blame it on.