I haven’t posted a blog on how I’m travelling for a long time. I guess I get a little tired of everything being about treatment, and cancer. My whole life just feels consumed by it. Everything feels so rushed.
So … tomorrow is my LAST CHEMO DOSE! Funny, everyone thinks I must be feeling excited and celebratory. No. I’m dreading it. Last time, they took 1 1/2 hours just to get the needle into the portacath in my chest/shoulder. By the end I was in woosie tears 🙂 And apart from that is the knowledge that I have the next three weeks getting over the revolting side effects, which get worse each time as a lot of them are cumulative. Three weeks later there are STILL signs of bruising where the portacath is implanted (under my skin). As soon as possible, I’m having the thing surgically removed again.
So why I am up so early when I should be sleeping? It’s always this way with the new drug (meaning for the first three cyclesI had three different drugs, for the last three one different drug). Steroids. Dexamethosone (or something). Called Decadron in the US. For the first three cycles, I had it as an anti-emetic, a HUGE dose in an iv bag. Along with two other strong anti-emetic drugs. They worked, no vomiting and hardly any nausea. Just all of the other revolting stuff. Then I have two days of tablets form of dex afterwards to help. I glow–lobster red and that is NOT an exaggeration. My face and chest burn. I hot flush. I don’t sleep. It has it’s advantages, I get a bloody lot done on it lol. But after those two days after chemo I totally collapse when the dex wears off.
Now, with this other drug, I have to have the dex BEFORE chemo starts, but not as an anti-emetic but to guard against allergic reactions. And they don’t give you any other anti-emetics. So I’ve found that the OTHER anti-emetics must have been essential to stopping the nausea from the dex (how’s that for freaking irony).
I now have a very fine fuzz growing back on my scalp. It’s nice and soft. My eyebrows and eyelashes aren’t fairing so well and I still have a silky smooth Brazilian lol!! Today, Liam counted my eyelashes. He says I have a total of 10, and that’s including both eyes *sigh*.
I have stopped menstruating. I have awful hot flushes, and oh the other ‘hormonal’ troubles that get joked about. I seem to have a permanent case of PMT. They can’t tell me whether I am actually in early menopause now (forced) or not. It remains to be seen whether ‘they’ come back six months down the track or something. Whatever — my ability to have any more children is PROBABLY nil. The sadness of that is incredible.
Once my three weeks of this cycle are over, I then start six weeks of daily radiotherapy (which Liam calls tv-therapy lol!). With breaks on the weekends. I will miss my little boy dreadfully but he seems FINE with spending the time with his Nanna Kay. My mother will be coming with me. So starts yet another different thing to deal with. Along with 5 years of hormone therapy tablets.
Really, apart from a couple of trips to hospital requiring stays of a few days, due to my immune system being in a bit of trouble, I’ve handled it relatively well. Chemo wasn’t the huge monster I thought it would be. It is doable, but I’d rather not (GOD I PRAY) that I don’t have to do it again. Ever.
Did you know, the only people who lose their hair with chemo are people with breast cancer, leukemia (sp), and lung cancer? There’s a bit of trivia.
So that’s the physical stuff.
Psychologically, it’s been tough. All of those things I was so positive about doing at the start–not been happening. The Black Dog has revisited in a big big way, and I’ve been having a hard time with depression. I’ve only just started having ‘therapy’ with a woman who has THE most incredible insight, gets me totally in a way that few RARELY do, in fact I don’t know anyone ever has, and only in two sessions. She is quick, we click, and she wants to use Mindfulness as therapy–which is JUST what I wanted.
Already with that, I have been dealing a lot better. I still have my bab moments, very bad moments. My self-esteem is totally shot. I look at my hair in this profile pic and, well, can’t HELP feeling melancholy over it. Most of my angst is totally over Liam. The other night I collapsed in a BIG way because I had a sudden wish that I could go right back to his birth. Cherish every single moment from then on, do it differently. Of course I can’t, I can only try and do the best with what I can now. I push and pull my loved ones way from me (huge attachment issues–fear of abandonment and rejection). I’m trying, trying to live in the present instead of wishing over the past and projecting fear into the future.
One thing I have to stop insisting on is that I believe that my love/sex life is over.That no-one will ever be attracted to me again or want a relationship with me at all. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life alone. I am becoming sure I will end up a crusty, sad, bitter spinster. If I live that long. We all want to love and be loved. We none of us want to be alone forever, with no-one to share our lives with. That’s a huge thing to overcome. Because what we think we create. Everything in creation was thought first. Our minds really are that powerful. Laws of attraction and all of that (and I REALLY feel a need to do a blog about the bodginess of “The Secret”–opportunistic materialistic crap).
Anyway so that’s where I’m at. Battling demons, feeling anxious at yet ANOTHER ‘new and not so pleasant thing’ though radiotherapy will be a snatch after chemo. Hopefully the most I can expect is more fatigue (but hey I’m VERY used to that now, and a ‘sunburned’ boob’. Sunburned SHRINKING boob. *feels like chucking a tantrum*. I’m travelling. I’m learning. I’m trying to become a better person through it-reading lots of inspirational books and the like. What else is there to do?
This year has gone so FAST. Another 6 weeks and it will be “huh? what now? what do I do now?” Relax. Recoup. Convalesce. Whatever.
So… *sigh* I have to stop procrastinating over sleep 🙂
Thank you to those of you who have been SO supportive and loving and caring this year. You have no idea how I appreciate it.