I have put a post-it note on the mirror in the bathroom. On that note there are fourteen circles, one for each day I am taking the last set of chemo pills. I need an extra motivational kick to keep my spirits up. Every night before bedtime I cross out one circle. I have crossed out half of the circles and I am now half way through the pills and can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel – and the final summit is so, so close. The last five days I have spent mostly on the couch watching TV. However, today I walked one round in the neighborhood and I managed to stay away from the couch until 2pm. I am pretty happy about that. I’m over the worst, but since I’m not out of the tunnel quite yet I have to be careful to not push myself too much the coming week. I can’t even begin to describe the feeling of knowing that I am only one week away from being able to start building myself back up. It is almost unreal.

I am getting relief from the fatigue now, but not entirely from the other side effects. I don’t even know anymore how many layers of skin my right thumb has lost. The left thumb is following closely and my index fingers are not looking very good. The skin under my feet has also started shedding, but not so deep that it hurts. My feet however do hurt and they still feel like they are sunburnt. That sensation unfortunately will increase until I stop taking the pills, but I hope I can still go for walks without them being to painful. My throat aches like it does the day before you realize you are about to get a cold – and it has been like that for at least a week. I think it might be inflamed as well because the taste in my mouth is rater awful. And just to add onto the goodness, the inflamed throat taste is mixed with blood taste that is trickling down my throat from nose bleeds. Yum – not. Even if my whole mouth feels odd, at least I don’t have a lot of mouth sores, and food tastes pretty good.

I am worn down both physically and mentally and I need a set of goals to work towards when I’ve taken the last pills. One goal is to start reducing the dose of the pills I’m taking for the neuropathy. As mentioned before those pills are also used to treat anxiety. To avoid too much strong and negative feelings I should not abruptly stop using them. I need to taper down with one pill less every day. You might say that it could be a benefit to stay on this medication for a while longer, until the neuropathy is gone and until my dark thoughts and fear of that the cancer can come back are less strong. However these pills are making me so incredibly unfocused. I can’t keep a thought for more than a few minutes. I forget words all the time – simple words. I can’t read a book or a long article in the news without fading off. I’m not able to learn any new things. It is so bitter to have spent so much time on the couch without being able to read a lot and learn new things or enjoy a good book. Not much of what I read stays in my brain for very long. So yeah – I’m very ready to stop taking anti anxiety pills. I take six pills every day and with one pill less each day – that math is even so simple that I can calculate it – it will take six days before I’m off those pills. 

Other goals are of course taking longer walks, tackling steeper hills, doing harder yoga, being able to work, meditate more – and bake. Yes I have been watching a whole lot of Great British Baking Show on Netflix. I love that show, but I do get tired of it as well when I’ve watched five episodes in one day – yikes. And one goal – believe it or not – is to reduce my intake of sugar and wheat flour. That does not match well with baking more, but that gives me another goal; how to bake and make desserts with less sugar and wheat, and substitutes thereof. I have never been good at baking, so that is a fun project I’m very much looking forward to. I’ll start with the classical recipes – with sugar and wheat flour – and work my way to less sugar and wheat. Oh how I enjoy planning and thinking of what to do when I get out of this fog.

While writing this I’m on the couch, with soft jazz as background music while Benjamin is making dinner. And funny – while writing “soft jazz” Benjamin just changed to Michael Jackson and and now Billie Jean is on instead. I guess he needed some more rhythm to complement his stirring in frying onions. Today turkey burgers are on the menu.