Round 2, infusion 2 of chemo is done. It was completed a week ago.

Chemo, this second time around, is much more taxing on my body and health. The exhaustive and pain-riddled state I am left in does not lend itself to wanting to jump on-line and keep this blog updated.

Yet, here I am. I am doing better today than I was yesterday. I’ll feel even better tomorrow. Each day I feel the negative effects of chemo less and less. However, I know that in a week, I get to do this all over again.

But after the next session, I’ll be able to declare I have only 1 chemo infusion left. And shortly after that, I will have no chemotherapy to ravage my body.

Twenty-three days ago the second round of chemo began with me wondering how different it might be from the first round.

Broadly, I have suffered the same side effects to include nausea, diarrhea, painful joints, muscles, and nerves, insomnia, and a general sense of feeling like I was hit by a bus, then run over by a tank, and finished off with a good beating from a baseball bat.

Added into the mix on this sequel to my chemo treatment, I can add vomiting – or at least attempts at throwing up – to the distinguished list of feats and side effects. For the first time I am grateful I don’t have a stomach…because you can’t throw up if there is no repository of liquids and partially digested food to serve as the font. No, I get the effects of full effects of vomiting through dry heaves, but no satisfaction or relief by actually retching.

Around day eighteen of my first chemo session, my hair fell out – another noted side effect. I am 23 day’s in and have only lost a hair follicle here and there. So, will I be lucky this time and keep my hair that has taken these past 3 months to go back? I don’t think so.

As I look around my bed, on my pillows and blankets, and in my general vicinity, everyday there are more and more hair follicles lying about. I give myself another couple of days and I’ll be bald once again.

I know the hair will grow back. Some friends and family have speculated my hair would grow back red. Or curly. Or curly red. No, it will come back more grey and silver than any other color. But I know it will grow back.

Round 2, infusion 3 is just a week away. Never give up, never surrender!