Never saw that movie. Why bother? My life has all the sci-fi/horror elements it needs to recreate the film just fine.

Chemo invaded my body two and a half weeks ago, and I’m sure that’s when the aliens snatched away my perfectly good body and replaced it with a subpar shell. I didn’t notice right away. I was on my steroid high, so that I could do anything for those three days.

There were no limits to what I could physically do. Reminded me a bit of college when I accidentally ran into a wall, toe first. I put on my beer goggles (you get the plastic on a 6-pack and rip out all but two of the holes and wear it like a pair of swim goggles).

If I had one handy, I’d demonstrate it with a photo. So pretend if you can’t visualize.

Voila! Captain 6-pack.

So I donned my goggles and made fun of my broken toe and said, “I’m Captain 6-pack, able to leap into tall buildings with a single toe.”

Of course, my friends wouldn’t let me hear the end of it. When I walked around limping on campus for weeks afterward, they’d see me and jeer, “it was the other foot last time. You faker! Attention seeker!”

Anything for a “lame” story! Right?

But anyway, it was the Friday night right after my chemo treatment when I realized my new stomach had no idea how to digest food. Not like I could go in there and help my stomach figure it out.

Though I managed to walk every day, I strolled so slowly that I noticed the dog, who stops and sniffs every blade of grass, waiting for me to catch up. That’s when I realized the aliens had left me in an old person’s body.

Grammarly doesn’t want me to use the term “old person” because “it may be considered outdated, disrespectful, or offensive.” Oops.

So I remembered thinking, “Take notes. You never know when it might come in handy to have this muscle memory of what it feels like to walk this way.” I just pictured our director saying, “I need you to act like an old person.” And I’ll fall right into the role.

Go method acting! Just call me a regular John Wayne. Remember him? He never acted like anybody but himself.

And while the aliens were swiping out my body, they left me without an immune system. I’m pretty sure they took my tumor, too. It was the size of half a golf ball, and now I can’t find it. Could we call this whole thing even and call it a day?

No such luck. While John Wayne’s here, I’ve got to get back in the saddle Wednesday for chemo round two.

Back to round one. I called the hotline number at least once a day and had to speak to a different person each time. So I’d retell every step of the digestion process and how my body failed to get with the program. My story took an hour to tell. I sounded like a deranged lunatic.

To think, all I had to do was say, “Help! Someone’s snatched my body and left me with this piece of crap that won’t digest any food instead!”

Meanwhile, people were asking me how I was doing. I was like, huh?

Or, when I’d say, “Call me Forest Gump. I’m going to walk across America.”

They’d say, “Take it easy.” Like the aliens had invaded my mind, too, and I’d forget what state I’m in, leave the bed and whatever show I was binge-watching, to accidentally clean the house, run errands, or heck, dare to walk across America.

And, my most embarrassing chemo moment of all happened to come true.

It used to be my most embarrassing moment was in college when I brought a lot of bras, let’s say a month’s supply, so I wouldn’t have to do much laundry.

I put them in the dryer, and I hadn’t hooked them together, so they all conveniently hooked to the holes in the dryer. Bras strung across and backward and forward–a spider web of activity. I opened the door and just stood there and stared.

This guy was using the machine next to mine and couldn’t help himself. He chimed in, “Want me to help unhook them. I’ve got plenty of practice.”

That story carried me far, and though it pales in comparison to current developments–who needs bra stories when you can tell breast jokes instead? But here I was thinking, going to the ER was chemo uncool.

So I cried all the way there, saying what a failure I was. I couldn’t even be a waste of space in my own home. I had to be a waste of space at the ER. Suppose nothing’s wrong with me.

Truth be told it was nice being a waste of space at the ER (change of scenery). And I learned that I had done a reasonably decent job hydrating even though I hadn’t been allowed to eat for 24 hours (and the starvation only made me starve–it didn’t teach my stomach how to digest).

And the doctor wanted to check that I didn’t have an inflamed colon. It was a worthwhile trip because the nurse explained to me the body part I kept pointing to is the colon (never even knew where that guy lived). And I even learned where to find my small intestines.

For the education piece, I’d give the experience a 10. Oh right, back to the CAT scan. Never had one before. So the nurse wheeled me down all these hallways and then into the doors with the radiation warning.

The tricky part after all that wheeling is when they ask you to switch gurneys. I don’t think I’m capable of a task like that. Have you seen me walk lately? And then you expect my butt to land on that other bed? It seemed improbable, but somehow I pulled myself up and rolled over.

The nurse inserted the iodine into my IV and told me it would get really hot. I could feel it surge through me down to my toes.

They pushed me into the big round hole in the beat-up machine. Not before I had noticed it looked like nurses of days past had accidentally rammed millions of gurneys into it.

And with the hot liquid surging inside of me, it wasn’t a far fetch to imagine I was a witch burning at the stake. And, sure enough, there was laughter. No, it was cackling. Witches were cackling. Halloween had officially started!

When my ten minutes were up, to be sure, I asked the nurse if she had been cackling. She laughed, a little too uneasy for my liking, and said no. Though I don’t think that’s part of her job description.

My stage husband from our Mamma Mia days, Bill, always cracks an awful joke, which Alex now tells. When you go to the restaurant, they’ll ask the waitress, “What’s the chardonn-ay?” And then they’ll say, “That’s too expensive, I’ll go with the Chardon-B.”

So in respect to that joke, “the aliens snatched my body, and they left me with this lame bod-F.”

The doctor assures me that he’ll adjust my chemo dose, and it’ll be better next time.

Not that I have high hopes for anything but my steroid high. And regardless of what symptoms come with it, chemo round two starts next week. That’s when I lose my hair. The stuff of my nightmares, or were the nightmares about teeth falling out?

When we were young, we’d play, would you rather? Would you rather lose your hearing or your eyesight? Little did we know that when you get old, you lose both, regardless of your choice.

So for old time’s sake, would you rather lose your teeth or your hair? Haha. Stupid game. I know.

But next week, you’ll get a laugh out of the preparations I’ve taken for hair loss. We’ll wig out for Halloween.

Meanwhile, let’s prepare for chemo number two. Please send me your spookiest photo–a collage of Halloween fun’s going to get me through this round.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some taking it easy to do, but first, I’ve got a body to find.

Call me what you will. John Wayne. Captain Six-Pack. Bod-F. The witch that’s on fire…Let’s stick with the witch. Just give me a broom, and I can fly. I’ve got a sci-fi horror film to recreate.