Mar. 2: Whiny, unhappy Jen

I ran errands with my nephew today. He needed to hit Voodoo Doughnut again for goodies to take back to his bandmates, and every good Portland resident knows that visitors should never be denied a trip to Voodoo Doughnut. We ran to Barnes & Noble for him to pick up reading material for the flight home, the Mac store to get his phone fixed, and finally, the airport. It was a lovely long weekend with him here, in which my liquor cabinet was drained and Scout fell in love because apparently Stephen drops a lot of food. I know rockstars don’t want to be described as “sweet boys,” so I’ll just say this: Steve’s bad-ass. He’s also such a sweet boy.

Once upon a time I hope to see him again, hopefully in concert and hopefully when he’s super-famous and everyone in the venue will be impressed when they hear me say, “Yeah, the drummer’s my neph.” That would be way cool for me, huh?

While walking around B&N this morning, a wave of nausea hit me and I started sweating profusely. Once I sat down it seemed to dissipate a little, but I still felt pretty crappy—dizzy and more nauseous than I’ve probably felt since this whole cancer thing began. I didn’t even go into Voodoo Doughnut, for fear the intense fried dough and frosting smells would make me feel even worse. I know! The sick-sick-sicky feeling didn’t really improve throughout the day, and I went to bed immediately after returning home from the airport. I’ve been here pretty much ever since, sleeping off and on, too tired to even turn on the Law & Order: SVU marathon. I know!

There’s a pain in my left side that could be my spleen rebelling, and that makes me nervous. My skin is tender everywhere, and even the lightest touch makes me want to curse loudly. It hurts to sit for more than a few minutes, to rest against my pillow, to walk across the room. Yes, I know I’m being whiny and complain-y and all that. I’m sorry; I really do try not to bitch about feeling rotten as often as I actually feel rotten. But these few days of one-week-post-chemo truly suck and make me not want to see people or talk to people or email people or even blog most of the time. I’m working on being a nicer person during this time; please bear with me. (I kinda think Stephen’s lucky he got out of here when he did.)

My physical therapy appointment went well on Monday. I have another on Wednesday afternoon. The therapist is cool and we hit it off immediately, but I don’t think she thinks there’s much wrong with me that she can fix. We’ll see. Even if it doesn’t improve my range of motion, lingering back pain, etc., it can’t really hurt, can it?

No matter how much I complain about the chemo side effects, though, I’m relieved that I don’t have herpes like some people I know. That must be so embarrassing!