High dose chemo, day 9

Things are still going fairly well, fatigue and nausea remain the main issues. Hopefully the nausea can be  kept at bay with the right medications, in the past it has taken a bit of fiddling around to get the type of medication and dosage right, but it makes a big difference to my energy levels and general well being when we do. In spite of the nausea I am still getting enough food in to avoid too much weight loss, which is great as a significant amount of people who have high dose chemo end up on a feeding tube or being fed through a drip. Obviously I am very keen to avoid that, and as I only have about a week to go before things turn around I think that I can safely say that I will be able to continue to eat the old fashioned way (albeit somewhat slower than my usual scarfing!).
The fatigue is just something that has to be endured. Most of it is due to the chemo, some of it is due to the fact the hospitals are LOUD and sleep is hard to come by, especially in the multi-bed rooms. The problem with the multi-bed rooms is that the beds are only separated by the 'Curtain of Silence'. Designed by Viktor Leaksalotski, the famed Russian nuclear engineer responsible for the containment field at Chernobyl (and, after his defection to the west, the cone of silence that can be seen in the cold war documentary series known as Get Smart), the 'Curtain of Silence' is also totally ineffective at keeping anything in or out. Just like the cone of silence, one of the quirks of the curtain of silence is that it seems to deaden all noise inside its perimeter, therefore the people inside it feel the need to shout, or have their tv blaring, oblivious to the fact that people outside it can hear everything. An additional quirk of the curtain of silence is that it seems to distort the fabric of time so much that the people inside it don't seem to realise that their tv is blaring at 3am... The real trouble with my fellow patients who think it is ok to turn on the tv at 3am is that they seem to have the ability to sleep through anything, including me slamming the toilet door as loudly as possible while they are snoring away during the middle of the day. Revenge may be sweet but sometimes it can be elusive too.
Cheers, Pete.