I remained in Isolation for
about a week. While there I could eat anything I wanted but the last thing I
wanted, strangely enough, was to eat. Believe me, that’s unusual for me. The
head dietitian, a little bird-like lady with an iron will, visited me
regularly.
“I’ll fix you anything you
want,” she said. I, wanting to send her away happy, wracked my feeble brain for
something edible that appealed to me. Nothing, not even chocolate! The things I
loved to eat made my stomach turn when I thought about them. She brought me a bunch of grapes one day
and those I found I could eat. So, bless her heart, she kept me constantly
supplied with grapes.
Toward the end of the week
in Isolation the doctor moved me to Rehab. My weakness had been so profound
that I couldn’t walk unaided. Rehab, the nurse explained, meant I would be
retrained to help me regain the abilities I’d lost. The oxygen nasal cannulars
stayed in my nose and the antibiotic IV in my arm but every day a few times a
day I went for a walk with one of the nurses. Short walks at first, of course.
I found it impossible to climb stairs so that became part of my retraining as
well.
One of the requirements for
a person in Rehab, I found, was to walk to the dining room and eat with the
other inmates also in Rehab. That turned out to be a trial for me because
eating with those other folks for reasons only my stomach knows, made me lose
my appetite even more. The little dietitian even promised me she’d go out and
buy something and fix it herself if I would eat it. But my stomach rebelled. I
ate grapes.
The good news was I lost 25
pounds. The bad news was I needed more nutrients. However, even if I wanted to
eat I couldn’t. It happened to be the best diet I ever went on but the doctor
and dietitian were not happy with me. Well, you can’t make everyone happy.
Other than my problem with
eating while in Rehab, I found one fine morning, my hair coming out in chunks.
I had hoped that with just the one chemo treatment my hair would be spared.
Wrong! In just a day or so I lost all my hair. From the time I was 4 and had a
Dutch bob (picture the little guy on the Dutch Boy paint can) my hair gave me
fits. At the ripe old age of 6 I begged and pleaded for curly hair and my
mother finally gave in and gave me my first perm. I loved my curls. My regular hair,
though, was stick straight and thin—and now it was gone. I decided thin and straight
was better than bald but before I left the hospital my hair left first. Good
thing I’d bought 2 wigs before the chemo because, I admit it, I am vain and
never felt baldness helped my self-image at all.
A good friend, Barbara
Higgins-Wilson, bought me 3 (can you believe it, 3!) hats. These I wore in the
hospital, as my wig didn’t work well there. And I still wear them occasionally
on a bad hair day.
Two weeks after my admission
into the hospital the doctor scheduled me to go home. Finally, going home, but
I still needed the antibiotic by IV and could I get off the oxygen in time?
Plus the insurance company wanted me to administer my own IV? They had to be
kidding!
No comments:
Post a Comment