small cliff

Word on the adriamycin/cytoxan street is that there is a small cliff after the third treatment. I am trying my best to walk the descent slowly, or at the very least try to catch a branch as I fall, like they can successfully do in cartoons. Or that Zen story where the monk savors the strawberry as he hangs onto a branch, having caught it on the way down to the pit with the waiting tigers, as he watches the mouse gnawing on the branch that is momentarily saving him. Oh, gosh, it's not that bad, but I do notice that the air is heavier, that movement is more laborious, that keeping up my strength is a puzzle I can't quite solve.

There is a weird neck pain and tenderness, all around the perimeter. I don't know if it's associated with the throat discomfort that is also there, but swallowing means working your way past some invisible impediment. The throat thing is not pain, exactly, just a good-sized speed bump on the road to a successful swallow. So drinking water, which is supposed to be my primary job, is much easier urged than done. Plus the taste -- ach, the unpleasant taste, even of good water! Today, only carrots don't repel me, but they take an inordinate amount of work to get past the requisite machinery of the mouth and throat. Rule of the road with chemo tasteblecch is to get food in and down as quickly as possible, and carrots don't abide by that rule -- but for today, I'll chew on them anyway.

I have had two great baths in Laura's mom's luxuriously deep tub. Interesting past-time while in the tub has been pulling off leg hairs, which come off as easily as a piece of lint.