Chemo Brain, What's in a Name, and Other Random Thoughts

I was warned about "chemo brain", but so far it's not what I had expected. I was thinking perhaps I would misplace my keys or not be able to recall someone's name.  Since these are things I do already, my plan was to live happily in denial and simply not notice any cognitive impairment.  My keys are in my purse, my name is Paula, and I find myself forgetting things I would not have thought possible to forget.  For example, last night I had to check three different cupboards to find my drinking glasses (which have been in the same place since we bought this house last October).  One of my friends suggested the next time this happens, I forget the glass and go straight for the bottle.  I think this is sound advice.

I was thinking about the names Adriamycin and Cytoxan.  Adriamycin, Adria for short, sounds like a pretty name for an interesting woman you might meet somewhere like hot yoga.  It doesn't sound like something that causes you to cry red tears or that may cause heart failure and/or leukemia.  Cytoxan sounds like something out of a season of 24. Former CTU agent, Jack Bauer, is closing in on a terrorist plot to release a lethal dose of the biologic agent Cytoxan in the NY subway system.  I wonder how it is they come up with these drug names.

I went to see my Psycho-oncologist yesterday.  He's probably an Onco-psychiatrist actually, but I think the other has a nicer ring.  Basically, he's a guy with multiple advanced degrees who is supposed to help me manage my fatigue.  He has instructed me to do moderate exercise each day and apart from that to employ energy conserving strategies such as organizing the things I need on one floor of my home or sitting to do things if possible.  He recommends doing the same exercise for the same amount of time at the same time each day (even if it requires scraping myself off the floor to do so). Because he has multiple advanced degrees, he says things such as "stimulating a biochemical pathway to create a vector."  Yesterday he told me that there is a subset of patients who after treatment continue to experience fatigue permenantly.  He said it's because they continue to "push themselves beyond their biologic capacity".  He said because of the downward spiral of fatigue they get in, they may push themselves beyond their biologic capacity simply by resuming their daily activities.  INSERT SCREECHING TIRE SOUND HERE.  What??!  Resuming their daily activities?  Oh my gosh, I forgot to set aside some of my daily activities.  I immediately thought, so far no one has given me permission to set aside any of my daily activities.  I also immediately realized that no one is going to.  I need to give myself that permission and figure out how to better orchestrate the setting aside where possible.  The goal is that I will recover from treatment more quickly.  My hope is that I will spend less time on the floor during treatment.