Cancer 158

The life and times of living with cancer, part 92.

What a strange night. I was very tired last night. After treatment was completed last Thursday we drove down to Devon on Friday to see the kiddiewinkles, driving back on Sunday. I was so tired. We went to bed at about 8pm after I changed my stoma. I read for a few minutes then fell asleep. By 8.45pm I was up and going to the toilet. By 10.30pm I had been to the toilet five times. By 2am I had lost count of the number of times I had been to the toilet, constantly waking and falling asleep. BY this time I was fully awake and went downstairs to read. I let the cats out between 3am and 5am and then had to change my stoma again. In case you are wondering there was some diarrhoea. Be careful not to get it on the furniture.

The problem with the stoma after chemotherapy is that it becomes a little unpredictable both in terms of frequency it needs to be changed and what is emerging from my remaining bowel, solids or liquids or something in between. In these conditions I don’t like to leave a bag on for more than 12 hours as it may start to leak. Where the glue attaches to the skin there is a slow (or usually slow) seepage, and if it gets out then, well, you know.

I went back to bed after 5am and went to sleep, punctuated by still going to urinate at very frequent intervals. I think I now hold the record for the number of pisses in a night. They were heavy. I like to think that urinating frequently is getting rid of the breakdown products of the cancer and the chemotherapy. It helps keep me cheerful in the night when I am constantly getting out of bed.

I was also dreaming intensively, often the same dream for long periods of wakefulness and sleep. One dream was about some kind of fight where I was attached to many cables and I was removing them one by one. I don’t know if this is linked to the reality of the Hickman line and that I woud like it removed. Ask Freud, I’m sure he would have something to say about my circumstances. I seem to write a lot that is relevant to the anal stage, even though it has little relevance to someone with a stoma. Thanatos might be more relevant for my circumstances.

Don’t tell anyone, especially those I criticise for not getting up in the morning, but I stayed in bed until after 10am. Ridiculous.