A Spork in the Road

I’m not saying beet juice is the most delicious thing ever. I mean, I love beets, I really do, but I will acknowledge that beet juice itself does taste somewhat like, well, dirt.

However, I happily drink a glass of it a day (mercifully cut with apple juice and carrot juice) for its apparently remarkable benefits to my overall health.

(The exceptionally squeamish may stop reading here. I’m about to delve into various physiological details that may be off-putting to those of delicate sensibilities.)

Now, the heaviest hitter in my particular chemo regimen is Adriamycin (trade name), aka doxorubicin (generic name), aka “The Red Devil.” You’ve read my accounts of having toxic Hawaiian Punch fed into my veins. (This past Tuesday, in fact, it occurred to me that the nurses wear thick elbow-length blue gloves when they push my Adriamycin and Vinblastine. Lest they get any of the toxic chemicals on their skin. The toxic chemicals that are going directly. Into. My. Jugular. Oooh, fun!)

Adriamycin turns lots of people’s pee pink or red, for varying lengths of time. Usually, for me, by the time I leave the infusion room I’m peeing a relatively normal color again. (I stay hyper-hydrated the day before and of chemo, so during my infusion I’m constantly unplugging my IV monitor and rolling into the bathroom for another whiz.)

On Wednesday I was dismayed to see that my pee was still pink. Ugh, thought I, my body is really struggling to flush this stuff out this time. Yet I feel pretty good today, not too stupid, not too sluggish, not too achy in the mouth or chest, reasonably good appetite.

Then I realized.

Beets.

Beet pee looks remarkably like Adriamycin pee. So if you have a hankering to relate directly to a small part of the Hodgkin’s lymphoma ABVD chemo experience, drink a glass of fresh beet juice daily and you too can have red urine.

Fortunately, with beet juice you’re likely to detoxify your liver and kidneys, boost your blood counts, reduce your blood pressure, and improve your overall digestive health rather than cause your mouth to be sore, your hair to fall out, and your brain to stop working.

In general, then, we conclude that beets are superior to chemotherapy for general health. Unless you have cancer. Then you have to take both.

Symptoms I’m tracking relative to juice consumption: white blood cell counts, red blood cell counts, platelets, metallic taste in the mouth, appetite, constipation, overall energy. We’ll see how my blood work turns out next Tuesday, and how I fare this weekend compared to my last post-chemo weekend (wherein I slept many hours and lounged pathetically around the house).