Tea and Birthdays

Cancer—and its treatment—has a way of taking things away. Some such things are to be expected, but others come as a surprise. Two annoying if relatively unimportant surprises lately concern my tea and my birthday.

Chemotherapy tastes terrible. That is, it leaves a nasty taste in my mouth for about a week, which interferes with my ability to enjoy drinking just about anything but especially tea. Now, anyone who spends time with me knows how important my tea is. It's one of the good things in life, both soothing and fortifying. Drinking tea has always felt like self-care—until I had chemo, in which case I'd take a sip or two and then just stop because it didn't taste good anymore. Last Saturday, not long before the effect wore off, Gita had the bright idea of suggesting that I try my tea with milk, something I don't usually do. I tried it and it was indeed much better that way. So while it was too late to do me much good this time, I now know what to do about my tea if I have to have chemo again. 

When you go in for chemo, or many another stressful or painful medical procedure, they need to make sure they're giving the infusions (or surgery, or whatever) to the right person. So at multiple times during a chemo session—for each blood draw, and each new medication attached to your drip line—they ask you when your birthday is. 

"Birthday?" they ask, and then, Jab! There's a needle in your arm. "Birthday?" and then there's poison going into your veins and a bad taste already circulating in your mouth. 

It's enough to make a person seriously twitchy. I'm getting a little break from the routine now, since I'm done with chemo, but in a little over a week I'll have to get a radioactive tracer injected for my PET scan ("Birthday?") and will eventually get my next dose of immunotherapy ("Birthday?").

All this in a year when my birthday is going to mean a lot to me. Last birthday I was in too much pain to enjoy it. This year, with my mesothelioma diagnosis, reaching my birthday will be cause for significant celebration, so I want to get the most out of it. It's been a while since I did much of anything celebratory, though, so if anyone has any suggestions for what to do when the time comes in November, do let me know.

Bad-tasting tea and unhappy birthday associations are small annoyances, however. There are other challenges facing my family just now that I want to acknowledge. Gita was notified recently that the funding for her post-doctoral program is being cut off as part of the ongoing spending cuts in the US government. Meanwhile, my parents are in failing health, and my siblings are having to care for them without my help.

On a cheerier note, it's spring. It's Easter. It's a good time to be hopeful about what my chemo has accomplished and about reaching my next birthday. I've been doing some gardening in honor of the day and the season, but I get tired too quickly to make as much progress as I'd like. Gita helped me with the pictured plantings yesterday.

Happy Easter to all!