The Things You Don’t Realize Chemo Will Take From You
When I made me my first post about what I’m going through, I thought I’d blog my experience or at least talk about it openly and initially I tried, however, doing anything more than journaling about it has been extremely hard. Even when my friends ask how I am my answers are usually good, getting better, or not that bad. This experience so far is just not something that is easy to open up about or even put what I’m feeling into words.
One thing however that has been weighing on me lately is the things that chemo steals from you that you don’t even think about and for me a major thing has been cooking. Cooking and baking is a huge thing for me. I used to instagram my cooking all the time, right before I started treatment I had started IGTV videos of me baking, cooking was my peace. However, when you’re going through treatment they strongly suggest you avoid cooking smells so you preserve your ability to eat. So not only can I not cook, but I can’t even be in the room when people are cooking. Chemo affects your sense of smell and cooking smells can make you sick to your stomach so for you to eat it’s pretty much like the food has to come to you without you being involved in any aspect of it.
I won’t begin to lie it is hard. Prior to starting treatment I spoke with someone who was also in their 20s and had just finished their chemo and they said how it was the hardest thing they’ve ever been through and it’s hard in a number of ways. But the hardest parts are parts you don’t think about. I have a few more rounds to go through so there’s another like 2.5 months plus recovery time that I won’t be able to even step in a kitchen and that hurts. I had planned to work on my food instagram with all this time away from work but now I have to rely on my mom to cook my every meal, to prepare my every snack, I can’t even really just grab a fruit because every fruit has to be washed in a lemon juice and vinegar solution. For someone that cooked multiple times a week just for fun this is extremely hard on me. I’ve resorted to looking at food blogs on instagram just to get some of that feeling. It’s so bad that my explore page now is pretty much all food.
When they say like oh you can’t eat certain foods (anything undercooked, all shellfish, all spicy food, etc) you’re like that’s going to be hard but I can do it for a limited time. But then when you really start going through treatment and realize you can’t even make the simplest of things for yourself that’s when you realize how much this thing is really about to take from you and not just physically but emotionally too.
