Cancer 93

I had a terrible dream last night, one of those that takes over your whole self, even when you have woken up. Probably fortunately I don’t remember it in detail though I did for the first minutes after waking, but it was about having cancer, and I was bleeding heavily around the lower abdomen and groin area. I had to cycle while bleeding. I tried to soak up the blood with a cloth but it didn’t work. It was quite a long dream and shifted from being a fairly sensible one about doing research about cancer to a terrible one about cancer, blood and dying. I didn’t return immediately to bed as I may have returned to the dream. I stayed up for a few hours to rid myself of it.

I feel I have learned something about dying over the last few days, not only because of the dream but because of the immense tiredness I feel as a result of driving 1400km to this villa we are spending Christmas and the New Year at in Ceret, in the far south of France, in the Pyrenees, near the border with Spain.

In the past, when I have been ill, I have always expected to recover fully and live normally. Even with my heart failure, I felt I was living with it rather than dying from it. With my cancer, it is very different. I am clearly dying from it, the key question is how long it will take to die. I have mentioned figures before, ie no one can tell how long they will last, the doctors cannot predict with any certainty, but the mean is around 2 to 2.5 years from diagnosis. I have now survived – lived – nearly one year from diagnosis (It is my cancer birthday next month so I expect lots of presents!). I have known this all along but it is only in these last few days that I have got a real feeling of dying. I have pains in my abdomen, soreness around my stoma, itchiness on my head and arm, general weakness and an inability to walk very far. I have difficulties getting up from a sitting position, and sometimes feel dizzy when I do so. My eyes are affected. I get blurred vision at times, they are weepy and sore. My body aches. My fingertips are tender. The soles of my feet are tender, particularly when walking barefoot. The list of aches and pains, soreness and tenderness is endless, and I have a strong feeling that they are all signs of the general decay, that they will not go away, they will just get worse until they finish me off. At times I am taking painkillers but I want to avoid them, it feels like giving up to give in to pain. I am taking a generalised antibiotic, with a prescription for 50 days – that wouldn’t be handed out to just anybody. It feels that the health service will ply me with any drugs that will make my life just that little bit better. I have a bag full of drugs with me that serve a variety of purposes. My stoma kit consists of three big bags. I am back to chemotherapy towards the end of January. I am expensive to maintain – but for how much longer?

The feeling throughout life that it is normal to recover from an illness is hard to lose, but I am losing it. I still hope that many of these problems will, at least temporarily, go away, though I must admit I am not fully convinced. That is what I mean by having a sense of dying, that idea that these multiple bodily problems are building up, that I am not recovering from them, that eventually they are going to finish me off.

Yet I remain positive. It is probably wrong to say that I have hope, because there is no hope, not in the normal sense. There is only hope that there will be a temporary cessation or diminution of these symptoms, that the cancer will spread slowly rather than quickly, and that I will have years rather than months to live. Bad dreams do not help matters.

But don’t worry. I still have a positive frame of mind, though at times it might not sound like it. Back to enjoying the holiday….