A Letter to My Chemo Drug

))sarcasm alert!((

Dear Docetaxel (aka Taxotere),

First, allow me to thank you for the prolific outbreak of acne you gave me as soon as you entered my world! There's really nothing like being 33 years old and looking like a pizza-faced adolescent again! My forehead, my nose, my cheeks and the areas of my neck just below the ear lobes were really lacking something before you came along. Little did I know that you had the cosmetic answer to my clear skin ordeals! And I have had a great time flushing hundreds of dollars down the drain as I futilely purchased dozens of facial soaps, scrubs and exfoliators to try to diminish the acne outbreak. If only these pimples came with braces and a piano to neglect practicing, my life would be perfect!

Secondly, the way you are able to wipe out the majority of my precious white blood cells is not only admirable, it's borderline heroic! It's not like I was actually using them anyway! Really, I had far too many than necessary for the normal person! If you hadn't come along and wiped so many of them out in one fell swoop, I wouldn't have had the pleasure of giving myself a daily Neupogen shot for three days, two weeks in a row. And do you even know of all the wonderful feelings those shots always give me?! The constant ache in the deepest parts of my pelvic bones, lower spine, hips and legs are physical side effects I never would have imagined could feel so great! How did you know I'm such a glutton for pain?

Thirdly, the extreme and constant exhaustion you and your chemo cohorts bring me is one of the funnest things I've ever....ZZZZzzzzzzZZZZzzzzz.....

Furthermore, the sore gums and tongue, the constant tenderness of my skin and muscles all over my body, the frequent bouts of nausea either when I'm not eating, before I eat, after I eat, or while I'm eating; these are all even more benefits with which you have enhanced my life!

But truly, finally, absolutely the best side effect that you bring to me as you relentlessly kick this awful tumor's ass* has got to be the chunks of hair you have caused to fall out of my head exactly two weeks after you were administered to me! Before today, I was getting carried away with the enjoyment I derived from growing my hair back out from last year's depletion! Everybody was complimenting me on how great my hair looked; I got to have my first haircut at a salon in well over a year; I had finally found the perfect styling gel that allowed me to make thick, chunky spikes out of my extremely dark brown locks; and I was even fantasizing about the day that would soon come where I could style my hair like 'Daphne,' a cute little character on NBC's show Heroes (minus the white dye job)! Thankfully, you came along just in time to put me back in my place! Who needs hair anyway? As a woman who has regularly enjoyed obsessing over the next great style, color, highlights or cut with my mother, maybe I was just way out of control. My hair is really too thick to maintain the perfect style, shades of highlights or length in a practical manner. So I thank you, my husband thanks you, and my stylist thanks you for coming back and letting my hair fall out so quickly that it clogged up the shower drain, not once, but twice this morning! That was F. U. N.!

I am amazed at how powerful a drug you truly are! I only got one dose of you two weeks ago exactly, and you immediately started showering me with all of the aforementioned gifts. I am beyond grateful for all these things; I also find myself with a renewed sense of hope: Hope that you are just as powerful at annihilating, terrorizing, killing and flushing away this obnoxious tumor from my body.* It would be a pity if you, instead, spent all your valuable energy on my hair, my complexion, my white blood cell counts, leaving none behind for you to do your job on my tumor. Please don't do that. Save some up. I'll take all of these funky side effects in stride as I always have if you can promise me that you'll do, along with your more frequently-administered buddy Gemcitabine, everything in your power to rid me of this cancer.

While you're doing that, I'll be here waiting patiently with my bald head, my spotchy red face, aching bones, tender skin, sore mouth and relentless nausea because that's all I can do. Well, that, and pray.

Sincerely,
Abbey Keller

* - This part is not to be taken sarcastically. This is actually a truthful feeling.