It is weekend#3. The time of the cycle where I can feel more myself and play ‘let’s pretend’ I am not having chemo on Wednesday. I love these few days – see previous posts – and although we have nothing major happening – the thought of spending a few days with my husband and kids, feeling relatively well, excites me. The weather is nice, I want to go for a walk, I even mange a short run, and I want to get ahead of myself with my work commitments. I clean the house, change the bedding and get chemo-week ready. But I am very aware that I have not fully recovered from my last cycle. I am a little low, smiling in all the right places, but just can’t reach to the part of me that I am looking for. It is because it is not there. Bollocks.
Since the snake came visiting, stress levels have lowered and we are operating quite well. We are having work done on our home, so my husband and I plan, buy, prepare for the week ahead where more workmen arrive and do their thing. The place is a mess but the anticipation of how it will look in a few weeks is enough to keep us smiling together. I think it is the infection I have had in my mouth that has wiped me out. It is still lingering and I am getting fed up of having to take my temperature to make sure it doesn’t develop into something bigger. Breaths are now harder to take as well. I had to keep walking intermittently when I was running. Another sign I have changed and the chemo has caught up with me.
I keep a chemo diary. I have kept one since treatment began. I look back to this time last cycle and can see the difference in my recordings of how I am feeling. Yes, I am not as I was and I feel sad. This way of measuring my symptoms has been really helpful for me. If I have a day where I think I always feel like shit, I can look back and see actually that might not be the case. My New Zealand friend bought it me and it gives the space to grade your mood. I like doing this – so I search back for all the smiley faces I have coloured in to remind myself that I have felt much better and this is just the infection getting the best of me.
Mother-in-law is still poorly. I have such empathy for her. It is just horrid feeling unwell every day and with the prospect of feeling better seemingly out of reach. She has had an awful time and we can see how fed-up she is on FaceTime. She is such a lovely woman and has done her best to plug the gap of the waste of human skin excuse of a mother I once had. She lights candles for me when I have chemo and always rings to see how I got on. I have definitely felt closer to her since I got cancer – which is ironic as I have not actually seen her that much since I was diagnosed with this bastard disease that now rules my life. She cares for her husband and they have been married over 60 years. He has dementia and I honestly don’t know how she does what she does for him. She is in her 80’s but passes for younger. But this infection she has had recently has meant she can’t look after him and my sister-in-law has been here for a week, taking the load and caring for them both.
Now, normally if she was here, I would be drinking way too much with her, and having the best time. Not this time. She does come and see us – but in the garden at a distance and we drink tea. Not quite the same. Her smile and sparkling eyes leave their mark, and as she drives off and I stand there waving at her until she turns the corner, I want to run after her and ask her to stay and look after me too.
I hate this sense of vulnerability that exudes from me.
I won’t go on anymore, as I think I have shared enough of that with you. But the most brilliant news of this post today is my lovely friend who I met when I first had chemo way back on June 10th at 12pm, has FINISHED HER CHEMOTHERAPY! I am fizzing with joy for her. I can’t stop thinking about her walking out of there for the last time – back to her husband – and knowing she is DONE! NO MORE CHEMO!! If there is any such thing as ‘chemo envy’, well I have it right now! She has finished and when she goes to bed tonight she will be thinking she will never have to go back to have that poison pushed in her again.
I have to hold myself from messaging her every 2 minutes. Need to watch my enthusiasm sometimes. We do talk and she does – quite rightly feel – overwhelmed. To me, observing this massive achievement, I am thinking she must be on cloud 9 jumping about all over the place – grinning like a Cheshire cat. But it takes me a few hours of reflections, before I see a different side to this. Maybe the enormity of what you and your body have just accomplished hits first. An anti-climax almost? Like Christmas – do you know what I mean? You spend ages looking forward to the big day, get it all planned and paid for, then by 5pm you are totally knackered, and wondering what all the bloody fuss was about.
I think about her all night, hoping the last bout of side effects are kinder to her this time, she has had a nightmare recently and has suffered because of this – and really does deserve now to bow out of this as easily as possible.
I spare a thought to my last chemo visit. Can’t help but steal a few moments visualizing myself walk out of those double doors, down the stairs, along that corridor, searching for my husband’s Audi, out into the fresh air, pulling my mask off, clutching my plastic bag of medicines with NO FURTHER APPOINTMENT CARDS IN IT…………. then…… pulling my wig off and throwing it in the air with jubilation and glee……….
OR…….
I walk out of those double doors, down the stairs, along that corridor, searching for my husband’s Audi, out into the fresh air, pulling my mask off, clutching my plastic bag of medicines with NO FURTHER APPOINTMENT CARDS IN IT……… and fall to my knees, sobbing heavily, and need physically picking up and dragging to the car……..