The Itching Phase & Chemo Brain Glitches
🌼 Date: Saturday, April 25, 2026
⚡ Energy: Itchy and mentally scrambled
❤️🩹 Status: Surviving the side effects
🤨 Outlook: Hoping my brain and my skin both decide to behave
The itching phase has officially begun.
I’m pretty sure anyone who sees me right now thinks I either have bed bugs or some kind of contagious skin condition. Don’t worry — at least it’s not contagious. Just another glamorous little side effect of radiation.
The double coat of lotion seems to be helping a bit, and having the weekend off from treatment will hopefully give my skin a chance to calm down before we start zapping it again on Monday.
But something else happened today that honestly scared me more than the itching.
The words I was trying to say were just… gone.
Not floating around somewhere in my brain waiting to be retrieved. Not the usual moment where the word is “on the tip of my tongue.” Just completely gone.
You know that feeling when you walk into a room and forget why you went in there?
Now imagine that feeling multiplied by about a thousand.
That’s what chemo brain feels like some days.
People joke about chemo brain like it’s just being a little forgetful. Misplacing your keys. Losing your train of thought.
But what they don’t talk about is how much deeper it can go.
It’s like parts of your brain start glitching. Words disappear in the middle of a sentence. You stop talking because the next thought simply isn’t there anymore. Conversations slip away while you’re still in them.
You walk into a room and your mind goes completely blank.
Sometimes it feels like pieces of your memory just evaporate.
From the outside, everything looks normal. Your hair might be growing back. You’re smiling. You’re alive.
But inside your head, it can feel like the control panel is malfunctioning.
And that part is terrifying.
Because it doesn’t just feel like forgetfulness. Some days it feels dangerously close to something much bigger — like dementia knocking softly at the door.
People tell me all the time that it will get better.
My husband. My mom. Friends. Co-workers.
“It’s okay.”
“This too will pass.”
“You’ll get your brain back.”
I want to believe them.
But what if it doesn’t get better?
What if my brain never quite works the way it used to?
What if I come out the other side of this cancer free, but not quite the same Tina who started this journey?
Maybe the snarky, quick-witted, smart-assed version of me takes a hit.
Maybe the new version of Tina is a little slower. A little quieter. A little more cautious.
…Yeah right.
Have you met me?
Not even cancer is going to shut me up.
But it may take me a few extra seconds to remember what I was trying to say.
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💗 Tina –
One Badass Day at a Time
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