6/29
Chemo is boring. It’s like having to watch three French movies in a row.
“I’ve sat here all day, nothing happened, and now I feel sick.”
They don’t tell you that when you first start. They tell you about the nausea and the hair loss but they don’t tell you that you'll get so bored you’ll want to stab yourself in the eye with a pencil. That you’ll get way too excited when the snack cart comes around and you get some Sun Chips and a Kind bar to break up the monotony. They don’t mention that you’ll want to apologize to the person there with you as they sit under the fluorescent lights and stare at the wall. You’re like:
Me: I’m sorry I know this sucks.
Other person: No, no, it’s fine.
(Ten minutes of silence as they stare at the wall. Snack cart comes by)
Snack Cart Lady: Can we get you-
Both of us: Yes please for the love God! Something anything please make it stop.
End of Play
It’s not like that at first. There’s something exciting about those initial visits. Chatting with my lab techs. Getting to know my nurses. There are questions to be asked and crossword puzzles to do. But now that I’m on treatment 6… small talk is harder. Even though I know what these bags are and what they are going to do, I still ask the questions anyway, just to have something to talk about.
The crossword puzzles have lost their excitement, and I’ve finished listening to S Town and Serial, and I don’t feel like reading, and ugh i
t’s warm outside I’d rather be at the beach or the pool or at work. Anywhere not hooked up to this IV. Anything not to be here!
Not that I’m not thankful. I know it’s good. I’d rather have boring chemo than exciting cancer. I guess if anyone is reading and is going through cancer, just know that I get bored out of my mind, too. And yes, cancer is scary and intense, but it’s also lame and boring. And inconvenient. And all this other little things it feels silly to complain about.
Yet we smile through the pain. We smile through the boredom. Because we know that what is on the other side is life. Hopefully. And we can go back to being bored by our Netflix queue, not the chemo.
