Infusion 2

Descending into the chemo tunnel is like walking into a concrete sewer line: the rotting muck, the stench, the dank air. It's dark inside and there's no way to find light. At some point, the tunnel slowly decreases in size until I'm on my hands and knees, my face inches away from the stagnant ammonia and shit, forced to crawl forward because there's nothing else to do.

Yesterday, I was on my hands and knees.

And yet, I can feel the tunnel give way. I know I'll emerge from it soon, allowing for some respite. I won't be entirely whole. I've been beaten. I'll be fatigued. But I'm hopeful that a bit of my personality will come up for air and I'll feel like me. Right now, I'm a shell.

I don't wish this on anyone.

And yet... it's working. When I first discovered my tumor, it was the size of a golfball. It felt like it had grown larger in the month that it took for the biopsy, scans, consults and surgery--perhaps to the size of a small apricot. After three weeks of chemotherapy, my tumor feels like a large marble.

After my first infusion, I laid in bed awake at night and felt the occasional sharp stab in my left breast. It was almost as fascinating as a first pregnancy, the imperceptible changes going on inside my body of which only I was keenly aware. The stabs were absent with this second infusion, replaced by tingles. It's working.

I share these images for you. I cannot look at them. They make me gag.