Cancer 72
I am sitting in the cancer ward with my drugs drip dripping into my arm for the 6th time. This is the last round of my first cycle. All being well I will start the next cycle immediately. This is the 11th week of my chemo. If I complete two full cycles I will have been undergoing treatment for 24 weeks, nearly half a year. At this very moment, and I know I have written about this very moment before, I am feeling somewhat lightheaded, my guts are churning and I am having some abdominal pain. Don’t tell anyone though, it is best if they don’t know.
I have had the lightheadedness before. It probably arises from taking both drugs at once at the fastest possible rate. If I took them at the slowest rate it would take around 5 hours plus changeovers, flushes, etc. At the fastest rate with both drugs it takes two hours, so I suppose it is my fault. The churning guts are probably related. It is probably because I am in general eating too much. I was weighed today and it has increased by 2kg since my last treatment. I need to follow that particularly effective diet called eat less, especially less cake – which is difficult when my other great pleasure, alcohol, has disappeared from my life for the last three and a half years. I need either alcohol or chocolate cake because I am certainly not going to take up smoking.
That leaves the abdominal pains, which have increased over the last few weeks. What these are is difficult to say, but perhaps bowel cancer is a clue. There are a number of possibilities. First, I am neurotic and imagining these pains. That is quite possible. Second, tumours are growing. That too is quite possible. I am stage three with fast growing tumours, though they were not fast growing between my operation and starting chemo. Third, the chemo drugs are eating away at the bits I don’t want them to eat away, eg my abdominal wall, liver, stomach, etc. That is also quite possible and may be an indicator that at some point I should stop treatment and let things repaid (though that is the point at which tumours may grow. Decisions, decisions). Fourth, and I would like this to be the reality, my abdomen has been battered and punctured over the last few months. Now I have started moving more, gardening, etc (I threw my old lawnmower into a high skip at the tip the other day. It really flew above my head height – hello the return of strength), my abdomen is protesting and saying that it is somewhat weakened by recent experience and I should be more careful.
I choose the last option.
Dr Nigel Hunt 
Te leo Nigel, yo sí te ubico, tú a mí no. Pero tú me ayudaste con mi tesis de la maestría. Te tengo presente y te acompaño a través de tus palabras.
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