I get it now. I see why they call it "battling" cancer. I mean I literally see it. You hear about it, read about it, wonder about it, but my wife is quite literally fighting internally in every sense of the word. It's a Rocky Balboa sort of fight where one gets pummeled over and over again, and you hope for a knockout in the final rounds to make it through. Except you don't get a motivational montage when just breathing is a chore. Note to self: create a motivational montage.
For her, it's epic levels of fatigue and some nausea, as well as a general feeling of awfulness all around. I simply cannot relate. All I can do is check in with her from time to time and try my best to be present when she needs it. The doctors said "try to maintain your normal activity levels after treatment", but I don't see that happening. Chemotherapy is rough. She has a lot more rounds to go.
A slightly torturous side effect that she has is being hungry but also having aversions to most foods. The doctors were right about one thing, eat small, light, and make sure there's just something in your stomach. I'm trying to stay on top of her with hydration but there are times in the day when she's so fatigued she can barely speak.
This is the setting that's going to define our summer this year, and we're all pretty exhausted already. There's a mode that I discovered that my wife and I have after Adam was diagnosed which involves a surge of grief, conversion to hope, and then straight into drive. The difference this time is that this hyper-drive mode is on me, because she's wiped out and fighting her own fight. With Adam we've had a common external focus. It's weird because while I know we're both striving towards the same goal of recovery, we're on our own islands of struggle.
Part of me sort of expected her to feel better after a few days. Clearly that's not happening and it's deflating to look ahead knowing we've got a lot more of the same up ahead. Still, there's a well-defined path, we know what we're supposed to do, how to do it, and how long we need to do it for. I couldn't really ask for a better situation given the circumstances we're in.
