Chemo Brain, Clean Laundry, and Registered Bags

Chemo Brain, Clean Laundry, and Registered Bags

🌼 Date: Tuesday, December 30, 2025

⚡ Energy: Wired but weirdly productive

💞 Status: Steroids ending, insomnia ongoing

🧐 Outlook: Organized chaos with a side of science

This morning was my last dose of steroids. No steroids tonight, which means tomorrow morning I officially start the shots. (Insert dramatic music here.)

Amazingly, I managed two one-hour cat naps overnight while working on the computer. No real sleep — but in the land of steroid-induced insomnia, that counts as a win. And apparently, sleepless Tina is also highly productive Tina.

I have washed everything.
If it fit in the washing machine — or could be coerced into fitting — it has been washed.
I love the smell of clean. LOVE it.

Which brings us to… smells.

Ever since starting chemo, my nose has turned into a bloodhound with opinions.

Casey came home with Taco Bell. He had approximately half an ounce of lettuce on his taco, and the smell of that lettuce nearly made me lose my lunch. LETTUCE. It wasn’t bad. It wasn’t turning. It was just… lettuce.

Then came the real betrayal.

Peanut butter.

One of my favorites. A staple. A friend.

Casey made toast — one piece with butter, one with peanut butter — sat next to me, and suddenly I was overwhelmed with the urge to heave. I politely asked him if he could please eat the peanut butter toast first, as quickly as possible, so I didn’t have to smell it anymore.

This is my life now.

No smooth segue here — though I do appreciate a smooth peanut butter joke — but I want to talk about my chemo command center, because it’s become essential.

This is my at-home chemo command center, and it exists for one simple reason: I am done trying to read microscopic print while mid-nausea cycle. Everything is labeled in a way that works for me, because my brain and my stomach are no longer taking shifts at the same time.

In this picture you’ll see:

• My labeled medication bottles, because chemo brain + tiny font is a hard no
• My thermometer and sterile sleeves, since I have to take my temperature daily — and before calling the doctor for anything
• Alcohol wipes for shot prep
• My puppy Band-Aids (gift exchange win 🐶 Thanks Mel and kids!)
• ALL the meds that help me go… and then help me not go too much
• Gas pills, because apparently even drinking water causes bloating now
• Nausea meds (pick one, I now have four to choose from), paired with Pepcid, which I learned is a histamine blocker

And then… still living on my counter since surgery in October, because I genuinely do not know what I’m supposed to do with them, are the registration cards for my bags.

Let me say that again.

Registration. Cards. For. My. Bags.

Am I required to carry these on me?
Who exactly is going to ask to see them?
If someone does, do I:

• show them the cards?
• flash them my bags?
• both?

Is this like a service animal situation, where legally you’re not supposed to ask someone if their animal is registered?

And if that’s the case…
does that mean my bags are registered service or emotional support bags?

Because if so, I feel like they should be helping me carry groceries or at least fetch snacks.

Still no real sleep.
Still learning new things every day.
Still moving forward.

💗 Tina –

One Badass Day at a Time