I fear I may have backed myself into a bit of a corner here. I have been so focused on the “positives” of cancer (perky rack, good painkillers, free food) and making the process easier for my kids (later bedtimes, more cupcakes, playing with my boob), that I hadn’t stopped to consider that my life would actually change once treatment started.

I was an idiot.

I had my first chemo treatment last week. Well, my first treatment was aborted due to an immediate and serious allergic reaction to the first chemo drug they gave me, taxotere. When 5 nurses and you oncologist rush into your little cubicle, pushing Benadryl and asking you whether you would describe your breathing as heavy or pressured, you should probably take note that this isn’t going to be as easy as buying a wig and slathering on an extra layer of sunscreen.

After my allergic reaction, it was back to the drawing board with a new chemo cocktail the next day – Paclitaxel and Cytoxan. I will refrain here from my justified damning of the insurance industry. According to my excellent oncologist, paclitaxel is a better drug than taxotere but since it is so expensive, insurance companies will only cover it after a documented allergic reaction to taxotere. So thank you, severe flushing and heavy, pressured breathing.

Those two drugs seemed to go through with little problem. I felt tired – which could have been leftover from the massive doses of Benadryl they had given me the day before – but I felt good enough the next day to run all over creation doing my errands and feeling kind of smug that the chemo wasn’t keeping me from my to-do list.

On that to-do list the day after chemo? A shot of Neulasta in my arm to boost the production of my white and red blood cells as well as my platelets. In a nutshell, chemo kills the fastest growing cells in your body, which includes not just the cancer cells, but your hair, nails, blood cells and platelets. The Neulasta is supposed to stimulate your bone marrow to make more white and red blood cells and some more of those platelets to help you with clotting and prevent you from bleeding out from a simple nosebleed. The nurse said that I could feel achy, like I had the flu.

Springtime Saturdays in my family are busy. There are usually two flag football practices – one for each boy – and then t-ball for the youngest boy, baseball for the oldest boy and softball for the girl, plus any number of birthday parties and playdates. Sundays are a little slower, with only two flag football games (plus church and family visits), but Saturdays are crazy. Anyone out there is wondering how many kids to have? Only as many as you have licensed drivers. Because everyone needs to be somewhere at the same time and in the opposite direction.

I felt great until mid-afternoon Saturday. I even sat on metal bleachers watching my son play baseball for an hour and a half. Smug. I was definitely feeling smug about how good I felt. Then I climbed down from the bleachers and was almost brought to my knees by the pain in my bones. This wasn’t like the flu. This was like being hit by a truck. A truck that then backed over me a couple of times to make sure I felt every minute morsel of pain like a character in “50 Shades of Grey.”

My Memorial Day weekend was not full of swimming and parades and watching my daughter ride her new bike like I had planned. It was lying in bed, taking prescription painkillers leftover from my mastectomy and watching the clock to see when I could take another hit of Aleve.

I’m pissed off. This is not how it’s supposed to go. I’m supposed to breeze through treatment, with humor and cool wigs and colorful headscarves, amazing all those around me with my bravery and stiff-upper-lipped-ness.

Instead, my first 5 days after chemo have seen me whining at my husband, yelling at my kids and sticking pins in a voodoo doll of my oncologist, because this is not “mild discomfort.” (I feel like I should defend my oncologist against my own ravings, as he is a brilliant doctor and simply one of the kindest men I have had the privilege of meeting. If you need to go through something horrible, kindness is one of the most amazing gifts to receive. But since his name is on the prescriptions, he is, fairly or unfairly, the target of a lot of my whining wrath.)

Today is Day 6 and I’m feeling pretty good. I went to work for a few hours, took a nap and even picked up my kids at school. My taste buds only seem to recognize the flavor of nickels and my appetite either has me dying for KFC mashed potatoes (which will end up tasting like nickels) or never wanting to eat again.

People are asking me how I’m doing. Sending emails and posting on Facebook and asking me in the car lane at school how it’s going. What am I supposed to say? That I can’t believe I have to do this the entire summer? That this sucks so much worse than I thought it would? That I’m not brave or inspirational or stiff-upper-lipped at all but am, in fact, a big giant baby who wants to wake up tomorrow and find out that this has all been a horrible dream?

Instead, I say I’m fine. That I’ve had a rough few days, but it can only get better from here. Because at the end of this, I want to look back and remember how strong I was when it was really hard. Even if this doesn’t seem to be going at all how I planned.

Of course, getting the breast cancer was never in my plan in the first place.