Chemo—Hung-the-fuck-over

this is an excerpt from my memoir

In retrospect, I suppose this says a lot about me then, but before I began chemo, I had a thought: it wouldn’t be a good idea to do this hungover.

Boy was I fucking right.


That Friday morning, I awoke in a state of painful wonderment from the moment my cell phone alarm startled me. My eyes looked around my bedroom, my temples were throbbing as I crawled out of bed and reached for my phone, which I had left—as I always did when the alarm was set—a few feet away on the floor. At that moment, hanging halfway out of my bed, I probably didn’t look altogether different than Mike Tyson when he got knocked down in Tokyo: googly-eyed, crawling on the canvas, desperately reaching for his mouthpiece.

Oh shit, I have to get ready for chemo.
How did I get here?
Oh gawd oh gawd oh gawd oh gawd—what the FUCK did I do last night?

Before I dragged myself into the shower, I noticed that my shoulder bag was not in my room. Also missing in action was the jacket that Blanca had given me for my birthday. I must have left them at the coat check at the club. So I hoped.

Since my mom was back in the country, she wanted to be there for my 5th infusion. She and Dad had asked if they could pick me up that morning to take me to the hospital. Thank gawd I had agreed because that bus ride on the 48 to the hospital would have been abominable in my hungover state.

At 4C, I was seated in one of the reclining chairs right in front of the entrance. If it wasn’t bad enough that my parents were standing by the doorway, looking over me, anyone could have peered in and seen me, hanging my head from pain. From shame. After I sat down, I immediately took off my shoes, reclined the chair, and accepted a blanket from Vilma, my attending nurse. This was uncharacteristic of me. Until then, I usually sat in my chair for the first hour or two, reading, eating my apple and banana and drinking some water.

I set my left arm on the armrest like an offering (insert hopefully-life-saving toxins in here) and turned away from my parents. I tried to bury my face from their sight. The red eyes, the bags beneath them—the incriminating evidence. Although I did not know at that point what I had done the night before, I had this sick, sick feeling—on top of the sour gut I had—that something terrible had happened.

If being hung-the-fuck-over during chemo wasn’t bad enough, the veins on my left arm had decided to revolt. They were tight like cords if I ran my fingers over them—and they were tired, tired, tired! of intruders. Vilma sat on a stool beside me and poked into three spots on my forearm without finding a vein that would take an IV. Getting that needle set up was always the most unnerving part of the entire infusion, so by the time she punctured into a vein by my wrist, I wanted to wail in a disgusting display of self-pity. For the pain my dumbfuck-ass had put myself in. For being so stupid to have drunk so much—yet again. For fucking up, yet again—in all likelihood—a good thing in my life.

Instead, I closed my eyes and kept my face turned away from my parents throughout treatment. In between sleep, I squinted and looked around at the room which seemed too bleachy-bright: at my mom or dad, standing nearby against the wall with these blank, worried faces; at Vilma, her glasses on, a medical mask covering her nose and mouth as she hovered over my arm and slowly injected a syringe full of chemo into my IV. I couldn’t look at my parents in the eye so I drifted back to sleep, where this nightmare would temporarily cease.

When we got to our home in Fremont, the bony top of my hand wrapped with a bandage (Vilma found a tiny vein there that took one for the team), I slept most of the day away. I had called and texted Blanca, imploring her to tell me what had happened the night before. Once she called back, she reluctantly told me that I had lost control. Went crazy. Had to leave the club after I got “really aggressive” on the dance floor. Had to be taken away in a cab.

When I persisted in asking exactly what I did, she told me that she didn’t want to talk about it. And that’s when I dropped my questions, hung my head, and apologized further.

Whatever I’d done, it was that bad.