Chemo Brain
Chemotherapy drugs are very powerful. They do things to my mind that I’ve never experienced before. Like hallucinating.
I take that back. Once when I was 22 I was driving home at 3:30 am from my job as a bartender. It had been the busiest weekend of the year for bars and restaurants (Thanksgiving Weekend) and I had worked three double shifts in a row. I hadn’t slept more than 4 hours per night the last three nights. I was exhausted.
Anyway, while driving home I kept hallucinating out of the corner of my left eye that Ghandi was running along side my truck. His white robes were flowing behind him and he was barefoot. As I cruised along at 45 mph, the only thing that I could think was, “Damn! Ghandi can run!” I shook my head and looked over and he was gone. It then dawned on me that Ghandi was not a faster-than-a-speeding-bullet-superhero guiding me home. In fact, he was quite dead. And, for those skeptics out there: No I was not drinking and I’ve never done drugs. It just so happens that when I’m extremely tired, my mind hallucinates great historic figures of peace with super-human abilities.
That is until I started chemo. With chemo I feel like I’m taking a trip in one of Hunter S. Thompson’s novels. Sometimes I’ll think I’m seeing bugs crawling in my peripheral vision. Sometimes I’ll see some sort of movement from an object that hasn’t moved. It’s so strange.
It has really effected my memory, as well. I just finished the book “High Fidelity” by Nick Hornby and I honestly can’t tell you anything about it. I know that it’s about a guy who owns a record store in London, but I’ve completely forgotten the main plot and characters. This is dreadful.
I just hope that these mind tricks subside once I’m done with chemo.
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