The proverbial (and not so proverbial) brick wall

The symptoms of the second MTX injection have been a little more noticeable than the first, even though the dose was smaller. 66mg yesterday vs the original 83. Apparently they will get smaller and smaller the further we go down this course of treatment. I question the wisdom of this because it's not intuitively obvious. I mean if 83 didn't work, why do we think 66 will? Maybe there is sufficient MTX in my system from the first injection to have an additive effect. That would certainly explain the side effects. I felt pretty nauseous the night I got the injection and my workouts have been pretty sad. I just don't have the energy that I usually do. And on average, I have zero appetite. And lots of heartburn. Like my metabolism has ground to a halt. Which makes sense since apparently my liver will be pretty busy for a while processing all of this poison. Not too many cramps but enough to make me think the drug is having some effect. No bleeding at all.

It's difficult to find foods without too much folic acid. Which is the opposite complaint from the one I had when I was pregnant. I was afraid then that I wouldn't be able to incorporate enough foods with folic acid. It's funny what these experiences can do to your perspective. Everything is relative. So I had ice cream and rice cakes last night, I've been eating candy and and coffee and cheese and yogurt and really just anything made out of processed junk and/or high fructose corn syrup. You don't realize how much you appreciate healthy food until it's forbidden.

No alcohol. This is maybe the most depressing side effect of them all. I can't drink and it's not because I'm pregnant. A co-worker suggested I might be 'cause I wasn't drinking at happy hour. And I couldn't really blame him, it is the obvious give-away. If I ever get pregnant again I plan to do everything possible to avoid happy hours. There is no way not to arouse suspicion if you're a lush like me who all of the sudden swear it off completely. Especially in my group where there has been a noticeable baby boom over the last year. Everyone is on pregnancy watch. I wanted to respond that I wasn't drinking because I'm undergoing chemotherapy treatments. I wanted to make him uncomfortable for making me sad and uncomfortable. But I did not want the questions and pity party and stigma that would inevitably follow. So I said something lame about being a lightweight and having to drive home soon.

In the past couple days I've wondered if I should change the name of my blog. Maybe it's too optimistic. And even if/when I get out of all this HCG nightmare, there will be no babymaking for probably a year. Maybe I should join some other support groups, they must have those for people going through what is essentially cancer treatment. I perused the molar blogs listed on Stirrup Queens and while I typically shy away from IF blogs with baby pictures in the latest posts, it gave me pure happiness and great strength and hope to know that these two women had a happy ending to their stories.

So I'll stick with the name for now. Hopefully this treatment will be successful and I won't be consumed by this drama for long. One thing that seems appropriate now is the profile picture I posted a few weeks ago when I started this thing. At the time the symbolism of the brick wall was totally lost on me, it didn't occur to me at all. And then a few days ago I had what felt like an epiphany that the brick wall was exactly the statement I must have been trying to make. Like it was a subconscious act of summing up my entire story thus far and my mood about it generally instead of a just a random test shot I took with my new camera to see if the color accent function was working properly. The world works in mysterious ways.