Good Morning, Folks. This is going to be one of my imageless real-world blog posts. It has been a bit since I last gave an update on the joy that is dealing with cancer. This has been a ride that I would not wish on anyone. So many of the issues that I have had have been hard to pin down the actual source. I dealt with blood pressure issues that caused me to drop down to round 70/40. I’ve struggled with anemia and, for a while, was being fed iron supplements that really helped quite a bit. However, my numbers came up, and my “dealers” cut me off. The constant through line, unfortunately, has been that I keep losing energy and stamina and feel like I can’t really do much of anything without long pauses in between activities.
My usual morning looks a little something like this. I get up and go to the restroom… then take a break before feeding the animals. Then I get up again and take my meds, fix a water, and then take another break. After that, I usually hit the shower, which will require pauses after getting out of the shower before getting dressed. Then another break before going into the kitchen and figuring out something for breakfast, and then finally landing on the sofa where I am parked for a bit and start doing work, or like this morning, banging out a blog post. All of this is stuff that used to be trivial to do, but now feels daunting. I hate the way that my body has betrayed me, but it seems that I have also betrayed myself in the process.
I was put on tirzepatide around the start of this process because losing weight would both help with complications from the surgery and also make it easier to deal with radiation. I have no clue how many weeks I have taken it, but today was an injection day, and I have effectively gone through one vial from the compounding pharmacy and eight vials from the drug manufacturer via mail order. So my guess is about 14 weeks, as I think I got six weeks out of that first vial of magical serum. My friend is also on tirzepatide and has had all manner of complications, but luckily, as far as I can tell, I have not… or at least they pale in comparison to what it is like to go through chemo. At this point, I have lost around 70 lbs, and need to lose at least 20 more before I am truly ready for radiation.
One of the things that you need to understand about tirzepatide is that you lose your concept of what hungry feels like. I do not mean to say that I don’t get hungry often, or that my hunger has lessened… but instead that the concept of hunger no longer exists in my world. I have no biological censor telling me that I should be eating food. Instead, I try to feed myself on a regimented basis to make sure that I do not miss a meal. I occasionally get cravings, but the problem is that I cannot eat anywhere near as much food as what a modern delivery meal ends up being. So instead, I carve that up into at least two meals, if not sometimes three meals. I tend to order something that I can eat on for a while and then ration that out into individual servings. For example, I have some large chicken chunks and potato wedges from my favorite chicken joint, and I will have a few chunks and a few potatoes and call it a meal.
The other thing that you need to know is that eating is physically painful for the first several days of a chemotherapy cycle. It isn’t that it causes indigestion or anything simple to fix like that… but instead that I have pretty severe jaw pain any time I attempt to eat or drink something. This means that when you combine it with my lack of hunger, I end up trying to eat the most nutrient-dense thing I can possibly scarf down so that I don’t hurt for long. Lately, this has been the humble protein/granola bar. I was eating these for most meals… which means that I was also not getting a ton of total calories for someone my size. I was trying my best to survive… but I have come to realize that I was effectively starving myself, which made the weakness and fatigue all the more awful. Once I started forcing myself to eat at least two decent-sized meals a day… my strength began to improve significantly.
So essentially, without meaning to, I have been starving myself. I need to sort out some options to have on hand that are more calorie-dense than a protein bar but equally easy to consume. I’ve contemplated leaning on my old friend, the humble oatmeal packet. I used to fix that for breakfast regularly, and was pretty partial to the brown sugar variant. I am also wondering if I need to start tracking my caloric intake, not from a dieting standpoint, but more from making sure that I am getting enough. I’ve been on tirzepatide long enough that the concept of hunger is a distant memory. It had some other benefits, like generally quieting my busy mind and letting me focus more deeply on things. As such, I am pretty sure I will be on this for the rest of my life. I just need to strike a better balance with figuring out what a proper portion of something looks like, because whereas I used to be on the side of eating too much… I am now apparently in the opposite extreme of eating too little.
Anyways, love you all and appreciate all of the support you have given me. I figured it was time for a proper update on life. I will begin my sixth round of chemo tomorrow, so keep me in your thoughts so that the side effects are not too awful this time around.
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