Chemo - The aftermath

It has been a week since I finished my first batch of chemotherapy and boy do I feel like shit. I wasn't too sure what to expect from chemo, of course I was aware of it beforehand, but my knowledge of it was quite light. You are told a list of possible side effects beforehand and how everyone will react differently. The five days of chemo each consisted of being injected with drugs through the vein, they went pretty straight forward, it was after chemo when everything went haywire and it is those days in which I will be talking about in this post.

Chemo has turned me into something more akin to a zombie. I really do feel like a couch potato.  Chemo after all does try to kill you. Funny how medicine works isn't it.  You are drained of all energy, both physical and mental. Sitting upright I get breathless, even reading messages on my phone has become too energy consuming. Mentally, my head has been spinning all week, as you would expect. Whenever I close my eyes, I find it impossible to relax or to stay on one set of thought. My mind is jumping from one scenario to the next. Another problem has been the inability to dream, or to even think forward. Memories keep coming to me, but I am finding it frustratingly impossible to even dream about what I will do next week. So when I do lie in bed, mainly two periods of my life keep coming into my mind, summers spent in Lahinch and University. I think these were the times when I was happiest, carefree and life was ‘easy’. It is the polar opposite of life right now!  Nothing is more appealing right now than the image of a hot stew in front of the fireplace on a cold wet dreary winters day in Lahinch!

The anti nausea tablets work a treat and I haven't got sick once yet. Bread is about the only food I can stomach at the moment. Bread, flora and peanut butter, with pringles, yum. Mum comes back from the groceries each time with a plethora of food I just won’t eat. Anyway she is practising the blood thinning injection on the oranges, she is more squeamish than me but I refuse to put a needle in my stomach. Chemo gives you a horrible metallic taste in your mouth, and nothing will get rid of it. Water is horrible, sprite is better. I am constantly constipated, and often wake up in the middle of the night with what feels like jagged boulders moving through my intestines. The more painkillers you take the more bonged up you get. Everything has a side effect.

I do manage to venture out for an hour each day even though light and noise agitates my headaches. It never ceases to amaze me how different people treat you when you are in a wheelchair. They give you that sympathetic smile, bow down with one knee gracefully as if you were royalty, and when you sneak up behind them they become hysterical and apologetic even though they have nothing to be sorry for. Of course I can still stand up and that, but it is always entertaining when you go into a café and they move all the chairs, tables and prams out of the way only to get the table and then stand up and take a seat. Kudos for my Mum and Dad for pushing me around!

My mum is the best nurse anyone could ever possibly want. She flew over the moment I was admitted to hospital and has been with me every single moment since. When I am thirsty, she whips up a smoothie, when I have a fever she has a cold towel ready, when I need new tights she goes into the nurses storage room and nags a pair! It is a big change for her, running a successful business to now looking after me, and I know she is finding it hard but I don’t think I could go through it all without her by my side. I had originally planned on completing the treatment here in Sydney but I have now decided to head home after my third cycle in mid December. For my Mum and me, we both need to be at home for Christmas. My darling Shaun who has been my rock throughout will join me once treatment is finished.

I guess it would be fair to say I am quite depressed at the moment. Even when you are surrounded by ones you love and when the probability of cure is high, it’s still hard not to feel utterly shit. It has been a massive life changer, three weeks ago my biggest daily decision was which beach would I go and spend a few hours on before hitting the gym, to now where I am having to make decisions about my treatment, my visa and my studies. I do miss normal life and how simple it was, right now everything seems like a massive hurdle and it is hard to see the ‘light’. I get easily frustrated, I don’t like talking to people, even to Shaun, it is all very difficult. I am worried because I have only had one cycle of chemo, and have three more to go. I feel like a ball of dead cabbage which just takes life out of any room it enters. I hate seeing myself in the mirror. As I said before, I can’t dream, I don’t even have emotion. I haven’t cried in since my diagnosis. I haven’t even listened to a Madonna song in over two weeks, that’s how much chemo has destroyed me.

I am hoping my mind will settle as it has been a crazy couple of weeks and will take some time for everything to digest. Some good news, the tumour marker has already started going down after the first week which is in relation to the main tumour in the abdomen. However, I was readmitted to hospital a few days ago due to very severe headaches. These headaches are like nothing I have experienced before, constantly there and no pain killer is managing to ro bring some relief of pain.  The doctors are still not sure what the cause is, but a range of scans planned for the next few days will reveal whether or not the cancer has spread to the brain or if there are blood clots. Hopefully neither!

On that perhaps not so positive note I would just like to thank everyone for their messages of support, they all put a smile on my face! I’ll reply to them all once I am feeling more ‘active’ J