Bricks 101

I guess you all have figured by now out that the ton of bricks is my (now overused) metaphor for my chemo fatigue.  Telling (bad) brick jokes here is helping me cope, but I thought I'd share some information that I've been noticing, with the thought that it might help someone in a similar situation some time.

Inconvenience

You see, I have noticed that there are different levels and amounts of bricks.  I call them "Brick Levels."  First comes the couple of bricks that I seem to be carrying with me all the time.  They're not enough to keep me out of the loop, but they mean that I move slower than I am used to in just about everything that I do.  I call this level, "Inconvenience," because it's inconvenient to have to always carry 2-3 bricks with you.  What wants that?

The second level is "Hold on There, Pardner!"  It's a few more bricks, maybe a couple dozen or so.  I can still keep moving, but I have to way slow it down at this point.  If I'm working on something and I'm standing, then I need to work out a way to sit and keep it going.  They'll fade away in a little bit, and I can pick up my pace a little bit.

Hold on There, Pardner!

"Time Out, Cowboy!" is the brick level that calls for a break--usually about 30 minutes--in the action.  They can hit hard and fast or pile up over a period of time until there's about a couple hundred pounds of bricks.  The rest break will usually clear them out, but I have to take it pretty quick.

The last level is "Down for the Count, Mister!"  This is the full one ton pallet and it hits out of the blue, any time, any where.  Sometimes, it accumulates slowly, until I can't go any further, but more often it just drops out of the sky like something out of an old Warner Brothers cartoon.  I can be doing anything, and all of the sudden the feeling comes over me

Time Out, Cowboy!

and I know I need to be laying down pretty soon for an extended period of time.  Usually, I'm able to cut whatever I am doing short, when this one comes around.  I kind of have to.  Lately, though, this one has been holding off until the end of the day when I'm at home.  It still hits hard, but it's not interfering as much with my day.

When I write my "surviving chemo" pamphlet, I'll be putting in a section about dealing with the bricks.  In the meantime, you can consider this my rough draft.

Down for the Count, Mister!