Every so often I have had episodes of confusion. It is mainly caused by the chemo pill that I take on a daily basis. I hate it because it’s very hard to shake the confusion. However, the doctors decided to offset some of it by prescribing Zoloft. Basically they prescribed one pill for the first week, two pills for the second week, and then three pills for the rest of the time.
I was in my third week of this prescription, and I was going to downtown Indianapolis for a meeting at the local Lung Cancer office. I have tried to do a lot of fundraising and some speeches for this awesome organization. The Zoloft has helped conquer a lot of my confusion. In the past the confusion that is caused by the chemo drug has made me “nervous” about driving outside the Hamilton County area; however, the Zoloft has alleviated most of that confusion.
On this day, I drove to the Embassy Suites — the location of the lung office. I could feel the “confusion spell” starting. I started to get a feeling of panic because I did not want to get confused and the chemo drug will occasionally cause this behavior. There’s a reason they call it “chemo brain” and it is very real. I had my Zoloft pills and decided that it was definitely time to take them. I made the huge mistake of putting them in my mouth without any liquids. They are very small so “I thought” that I could just swallow them. I have been on these meds for three weeks and they already cause dry mouth. However, I put all three pills in my mouth and then realized that there was no way that I could swallow them. Thus I made the huge mistake of “biting” all three of them. I basically chewed them up and swallowed them. This was definitely not the smartest thing that I have ever done.
I would later read that Zoloft is not meant to be crushed as it increases the surface area and absorption rate. At this point it was too late. My first issue was that my mouth was on FIRE! Thus, I made a few turns and found the closest fast food restaurant. The drive thru lane was three cars long, and I literally felt like bumping the person in front of me. I finally made it to the front of the line and ordered a water, a vanilla shake, and a diet coke. As soon as I received them, I dumped the vanilla shake down my mouth followed by water and then the diet coke. The diet coke burned like crazy so I put that to the side. I was just trying to get some relief.
Three days later my mouth is still very tender and I have a couple of mouth sores. This falls under the category of one of those lessons that I had to learn the “hard way”. Unfortunately, it seems like that is sometimes just a part of the “cancer journey”. However, on a positive note, I have noticed that the Zoloft is really starting to help reduce the “confusion” caused by the chemo pills. When you have Stage 4 Cancer, life can sometimes be an adventure!