Third Act With Pattie

Tag: chemo

  • Chemo Chronicles V5: What do you call this room?

    What do you call a room with four women and no talking?

    I’ve been thinking about it. It’s clearly the chemo room, but that doesn’t begin to cover it.

    It might be a nap salon — where no one asked for a blow-out but we all left a little lighter.

    Or maybe a spa for the terminally exhausted, featuring the latest in drip-infused “glow from within” technology.

    Some days it feels like the quiet car on the Cancer Express — no loud talking, no snacks, and you’re not sure where you’ll end up, but everyone’s ticket cost too much.

    The Waiting Room for the Brave, perhaps, except there’s no waiting. We’re doing the thing. Just quietly.

    This week there were four of us. All women. All lined up in our recliners like power stations plugged into perseverance. Within minutes of the “pre-drug” drip, every single one of us was out cold. No chatter. No reality TV. Not even the usual IV-pole squeaks. Just four warriors in soft socks, drifting off under fluorescent halos.

    I had about ten minutes before my own eyelids surrendered, so I took inventory:
    – Chair 4 had really good hair and shoes. Definitely winning chemo couture.
    – Chair 3 was already asleep—basically a blanket with a pulse.
    – Chair 6 chatted with the nurse, then disappeared under her pillow. Relatable.

    And then silence. The kind of deep, unbothered quiet you don’t get anywhere else.

    When it was over, we rose like polite zombies—unplugged, gathered our stuff, and shuffled out with the reverence of churchgoers leaving midnight mass. No words necessary. We knew.

    Whatever this room is—a sanctuary, a spa, a silent sorority—it’s ours.

    Until next time—may your drips be steady, your naps restorative, and your IV poles never squeak at the wrong moment.

  • Becoming, Again (Day 2)

    (Or: Somewhere Between the Couch and the Cosmos)

    Time is weird.
    I’m calling this Day 2, even though the calendar swears otherwise.
    But my cells, my soul, my spinning little chemo-altered molecules—they insist Thursday was Day 1.
    So Day 2 it is.

    Yesterday’s question: Do you ever wake up and wonder where YOU went?
    Today’s realization: apparently, “becoming” requires traveling somewhere else entirely—no luggage, no return ticket, just a brain on shuffle.

    Chemo was short, mercifully.
    I even came home with my jet-pack—my white-cell superstarters ticking quietly on my arm, a tiny biochemical fireworks show set for 1 p.m.
    And then… I disappeared.

    I slid into bed like melting butter.
    Shivering, sweating, freezing, burning.
    Fan on. Fan off.
    Every molecule arguing with its neighbor about the thermostat of existence.

    Time folded in on itself.
    When I woke, the light had shifted but nothing else had.
    I drifted to the couch, a parallel universe where gravity hums louder and blankets weigh more than regret.
    I didn’t eat. I barely sipped water. I just floated in and out of body, like my brain had clocked out for interdimensional maintenance.

    Around 6:30, Luke appeared—steady, sun-warm—and said, “Come sit by the water.”
    He might as well have said, Come back to Earth.
    I sat beside him, blinking at the ripples like they were breathing.

    My mind was mushy honey. My thoughts, ping-pong balls in zero gravity.
    Winnie the Pooh would’ve understood. He said it loud and clear “Did you ever stop to think, and forget to start again?

    So yeah, I was here yesterday. Physically.
    But mentally? I was off somewhere between the stars and the shivers. Maybe that’s what becoming really is—your brain goes on a field trip to rearrange the furniture while your body holds down the fort.

    I wonder what version of me will step off the bus next time. I wonder if there will be a green sofa,

  • And just like that –

    The Wall Meets Udenyca

    Within 24 hours of slamming face-first into The Wall, it retreated.
    I give full credit to the tiny (yet monstrous) contraption known as the Udenyca On-Body Injector—a device slapped onto my arm right after chemo. Supposedly, it waits 18 hours before releasing its magical (and slightly terrifying) payload of medicine. If you’d like the medical mumbo-jumbo, you can check the official site here: udenyca.com.

    But if you’d rather hear it the way it really went down, buckle up.

    How It Works (According to Me)

    On Friday, they stuck this little white box on the fatty part of my arm (nurse’s words, not mine). Imagine half a computer mouse, only bulkier, and now imagine me banging it into every wall, chair, or doorframe in my house. Chemo makes me clumsy; add a plastic box to my arm and I become a human demolition derby.

    The device waits. Then, exactly 18 hours later—2 p.m. on Saturday in my case—it explodes into action. Note the description explodes please!

    The Moment of Truth

    I was napping, minding my own business, when suddenly:

    • A jet engine fired up inside my arm.
    • A samurai sword stabbed me in the exact same spot.
    • And then, as if I’d just licked a battery, I could taste the medicine.

    For one delirious second, I thought I’d dreamed it all. But the little green light that had been flashing turned solid—meaning the beast had done its job. No dream. 100% real. WTF.

    The Aftermath

    Once the pain subsided and the device wheezed its last mechanical breath, I lay there still trying to understand what happened

    Of course, being the overachiever I am, I immediately read the list of possible side effects. Big mistake. (Pro tip: if you don’t want to imagine yourself sprouting hobbit-feet hair or growing elf-ears, don’t read the fine print. These are not actual side-effects, but they are more desirable than the actual possible effects. Just saying.)

    Today

    This morning, I realized something shocking: I actually felt better. The nausea and exhaustion that had pinned me to the floor the day before started lifting.

    So here I am—up, moving, and cautiously optimistic. The Wall may have knocked me flat, but with a little help from science, samurai swords, and jet engines, I got back up.

    This cancer fight is brutal, unpredictable, and weirdly comical at times. Yesterday was down. Today is up. Tomorrow? I’ll keep fighting.

    👉 Every day is a battle. Some days I hit the Wall. Some days I walk away from it. But I’m still here—and that’s what matters.