Until it was something I was about to go through, ther than being bald, the only other thing I knew to expect from chemo was vomiting. I’ve always been especially prone to nausea. All my memories of long car drives involve throwing up. When I haven’t had enough sleep, I get nauseous. When I’m too hungry, I get nauseous. The way I understood it, some people vomit and others don’t. When it came to me, I had no doubt that I’d be one of the people for whom chemo would mean being sprawled over a toilet throwing up my insides. It turns out, with chemo, you’re not meant to vomit. If you do, it means something is terribly wrong.
If you’re on chemo, you’re expected not to vomit because they have you on drugs to suppress that. So you don’t vomit, but it doesn’t stop the nausea. There’s something about that which feels so typical of chemo. When I get car sick, or nauseous for any other reason, the most surefire way to make it stop is to actually throw up. But I couldn’t.
People love giving you home remedies, in general. Chemo amps that up. My parents, and I, kept getting this forward about drinking a whole lemon blending into a glass of water every morning, as a home remedy to replace chemotherapy. I was told about eating soursop leaves, the carrot diet, even baking soda. If anything, my long standing issues with car sickness and nausea are where my deep skepticism of home remedies comes.
Smell ginger, eat ginger, avomine, anti-emetic tablets, sitting on newspaper, sitting upright, sitting in the front seat, mint, lemon, homeopathy, eat before you leave, don’t eat before you leave. Nothing ever worked for me other than depriving myself of sleep so that I could sleep through it.
Throughout the process of surgery, chemo, and recovering from both, I didn’t hold back from whining about any of my aches and pains. Invariably, there was something that could help. With the nausea, there wasn’t, so I just absorbed it.
The chemo drugs made me nauseous on their own. There was one drug in particular, which I got as a weekly injection. I could feel the drug spreading like warmth through my body, and surging back together in a burst of nausea and dizziness. My sensitivity was through the roof, and all the strong smells made me sick. I still feel my stomach churn when I get whiffs of the floor cleaner they used in the hospital. I’ve always disliked the smell of cars - I’m overwhelmed by the smell of diesel. The thought of getting into the car to go to the hospital was as bad as the thought of being in the hospital for chemo.
Today I’m grateful for incense. After the first ride to the hospital, my father did a deep clean of the car, and then, every time I needed to get in the car, he lit a stick of sambrani in the car so that I didn’t smell the diesel. It didn’t cover it entirely, but it helped. It was yet another instance of me feeling unworthy of the love and care I was being given. And it helped. Later in the process, a family friend, and doctor talked about aromatherapy, and for the first time, a home remedy made sense to me. She gave me a bottle of lavender oil, and lavender oil is now a staple in my house.
I am the person who puts it in tea and drinks. But it’s also a bit part of how I know to help myself feel better. I use it in a little ceramic diffuser that’s heated by a tea light. I put drops of it on my hot water bottle. And I dab it on my wrists before I need to sit in a car. I’ve been playing with other essential oils. Whenever I clean my apartment, I light sambrani. And I keep trying different brands and scents of incense sticks. I know there’s all these people for whom incense and oils are used spiritually, and others who use it therapeutically. I don’t think I have enough wonder left in me to buy into either of those approaches, but I know how much I cherish the comfort.
