Cancer 151

I am a little depressed. It is an odd feeling, given that I am reasonably well, I have a social life, I am doing some work, and we are managing to get away on holidays and visits. I have no real reason to be down, but it is something to do with still being alive.

When I got this diagnosis I assumed I would rattle around for a while, gradually deteriorating, and eventually succumb to my cancer. I was told I might have two or two and a half years, and I am just coming up to two years, it has gone on a long time, perhaps too long?

I didn’t think I would be living with the stoma, the tubes, the drugs, the chemo visits (26) for so long. While I have the habit of them, and I try to make the best of it, it is all rather unpleasant. In a way I am living a half life, in the waiting room for death, unable to live normally, unable to do many of the things I liked doing.

I can’t help thinking others have had enough of it. At the start getting cancer is big news, but it can’t stay that way over the long term. People get on with their lives, while I change my stoma and spend time in hospital, trying not to be unhappy. Why should people continue to pay attention to my plight? I am old news.

Whenever I start thinking about depression I realise how selfish it is, even to think of imposing my thoughts on others in this way. Ignore me, my grip loosened for a moment, my upper lip unstiffened, but I am all right now.

It is good to talk.