The first thing I did when I woke up at 06:17 am was to look for the person who had a stanley knife and was slicing away at my spine. They must be here somewhere. I put the torch on, on my phone scanning the room for the culprit. I wanted to punch them in the face – and was wondering how I would muster the energy for my fist to strike. Why can’t I see anyone? Why won’t they stop?
I pull back my quilt and wince with pain. Whoever it is doing this to me, has now moved to my ribs. Stab. Stab. Stab. Piercing my tough hardened skin with a hell of slice. Phone torch is now directed to my torso and rib cage. I can see the ripples of pain protrude over my sticky thick flesh. I panic. I can’t see who is doing this and they need to stop right now.
Sharp, piercing pain leaps from joint to joint. Pelvis, hips, ribs, spine, neck, head, hands and feet….all fall prey to this invisible physical assault. The pain crescendos over me like a bulging mass of heat. Jesus Christ. My body responds by sweating. An instant release of moisture gives me a moments break from the kicking. I can’t stand it any longer, but I can’t move either. I need help to sit up and get some pain relief.
Husband snores next to me and I feel too guilty to wake him. He needs his sleep. So, I use the sides of the mattress to help pull myself up on to my side. My bedside draw looks like a pharmacy shelf. Using the torch I hunt for something to take to ward off this battering. Stab. Stab. Stab.
The stanley knife has grown a pair and morphed into a machete. I give in. I lie there at its mercy as it hacks away at my back. I count to 10. Then 10 again. It doesn’t ease and no amount of mindfulness is enough.
Sweating is no longer a decent enough defense, so I have a word with myself and using the bedside table yank my now mutilated body up. I am out of breath.
Steady myself and continue the search for something, anything that will disarm the intruder and get them to drop the blade. In the meds go and I take about 10 minutes until I feel safe enough to stand up and go to the bathroom. I wash my face and feel my shoulders drop as the cool water splashes my skin. The person with the weapon has left the room. I lie on my bed. My breathing slows and gets back into sync with my heart rate. Peace is restored and I feel so much relief I could sell it.
Joint pain and muscle pain are renowned with Docetaxel. So I know it’s M.O. Didn’t get this hugely last cycle, so I’m grumpy it’s reared it’s head now.
I’m patient. I didn’t get mad at myself and my body. I allow those feelings to disperse. As I gather my center and ground myself back in to Sunday morning, I remind myself that I am just a few weeks away from the end of treatment and the end of being woken up by an invisible, brutal assailant wielding the sharpest tool.
The day light hours are less painful. I sit writing which helps – this position seems to ease the pain a little. I get explosions of it through the flank areas and grab my breath so it doesn’t fully leave me. It is all I have to control the pain and I have learnt to regulate it and use it well. When the cannula goes in on chemo day, it is my breath that bears the sensation that has now become something I cannot cope with well. I will never ever forget the feeling and in my darker days, when my thinking is so powerful and controls me, and I see myself getting cancer again, and been offered chemo again, I truly believe I would decline and let the world do what it needs to with me. I am too vulnerable today to explore these feelings of the cancer returning but I know I will need to process this. Almost get ready. But I am scared that if I think about it too much – in too much detail – I will attract it to me and I will die. It is that simple. I am closer to death now with this bastard disease than I thought possible. A conscious death. I am fully awake and I am thinking about dying. I will share something very distressing with you. When I wake up in the night, and let’s face it those thoughts match the colour of the sky outside, I lay there on my back and I see my family around me, saying their goodbyes as I slip from their lives. Pumped full of drugs to facilitate the transition, I see their faces, catch their tears and say my goodbyes silently. The drugs won’t let me speak. But as I leave, I feel relief. Relief I no longer have this wretched disease in my body with its accompanying abysmal thoughts. Relief that they don’t have to see me decay and wither away from the bright joyful woman I was to this bag of bones and hairless body, caved in by cancer and chemotherapy.
I am not proud I have these thoughts. I am so sad they have a place in my head. This time last year I was packing to go back to Disneyland with my family. Now, I am thinking about dying and leaving them without me. I hate cancer. F***ing hate it.
I always will
A welcome visitor calls in – one of my neighbours. She has read my entire blog and wanted to let me know what she thought of it. Her Mum had cancer and she lost her last year. She comments what my words gave to her and how she has thought about losing her Mum and the chemo she went through. I never saw my words doing this. I saw my words reaching out to others in my position. But I am getting feedback that expands past my initial objectives. Feedback similar to this – from those who are supporting others through chemo, or have come through it and not fully processed what has just happened to them. I am so grateful she came by and thanks for the wine! But, as I bear my soul to those willing to listen and read, I am so so happy with the comments I am getting. I can’t stop at just a blog. I have to do something else and I spend the rest of the evening reflecting on my visitor’s feedback and personal story, and wonder how the hell am I going to use this experience in the best possible way I can.