I have a rattle in my chest and feel its bellow when I breathe in and out. I noticed it after I’d walked from my bedroom to my kitchen to put washing away. My ribs feel like someone is playing a xylophone on them, and that someone is blindfolded. There’s a banging sensation exploding inside of me releasing shooting pains in a number of areas. The pelvis, armpits, long leg bones, and right side of my head are keen to host such discomfort. They don’t come at once. They take it in turns – passing the hot sharp pain from one to another. At one point my bottom lip joined in too. This lasts for about 5 minutes, the leaves.
How strange. I later find out that this was my first indication of nerve pain which is one of the profiles of this new chemo drug. A classic side effect. I had no clue what the difference was between joint pain and nerve pain. I had to ask my gorgeous friend who very simply explained exactly what I was feeling. I need the knowledge to feel safe and understand what is happening.
So that is how nerve pain feels. Like a prickling or burning coursing through different areas of your body. A firework display of neuropathic pain, crackling inside of me, popping and banging in every part of my body. I can’t see this display going on, this altercation of body parts – but the heat and burn is felt and it is not comfortable at all. It pulls me up and stops me in my tracks.
All this on a backdrop of a dull, achy pain that radiates in every corner of my torso. I have lost feeling again in my fingertips and the insides of my mouth are stripped bare leaving it almost impossible to swallow anything now without wincing in pain first. Hot. Cold – it does not matter. Taste buds are non-existent and there’s a hint of steel flavoring everything I am lucky enough to chew, drink and swallow. I feel like shit.
the effects of the chemo are showing themselves to me – told you they would come! I am trying it very hard here to carry on regardless.
On a team meeting today my manager said I’m ‘looking glam’. It is only fair to say my wig deserves this credit. My hairy shield is my superhero – protecting others from seeing the internal rage and pillaging going on inside of me on behalf of the chemotherapy. My own chemical warfare.
I have very little left where hair is concerned now on the surface of my body. Think about this. If chemo can cause that kind of destruction on the outside, what do you suppose is taking hold on the inside? I can disguise my hairless head with a wig. I can’t go in and do the same can I? I can’t interfere in that process can I?
Chemo and my immune system may be bedfellows right now – tossing and turning their way through my treatment plan – but that is not is what is on show. People see my big hair, drawn on eye brows and optimistic smile and that suggests I am doing well and feeling good.
Yes, I suppose I am in some ways. I am standing tall in the face of a toxic head f*** but the psychological and emotional tolls are being felt.