Cancer 193

I have always tried to be my true self with these posts, showing my thoughts and feelings as they are at the time of the post. This is why there are plenty of downs as well as ups, along with the confusion that is the way I am often thinking and feeling. The confusion is greater than ever. I had a phone call planning a meeting with a radiographer, so it appears I will be having radiotherapy when I get back from my holidays. This was mentioned as a possibility before, as treatment for the lump on my stoma. It is a little scary. I understand radiotherapy can take place every day for two or three weeks. Oh what fun that will be, probably combined with the new chemotherapy.

How will it all make me feel? I dont know. I have been lucky so far. I have not been confined to bed or felt sick beyond the first day of chemotherapy, but who knows for the future? And will it be worth it? How long do I have left? Now the decline has set in can it be stopped? Will I respond to a new treatment? If I do how long will it be successful for? I can’t imagine it will last as long as the previous treatment (two years).

Over the last few weeks I have felt the decline. It is in odd things. My legs ache. I am sleeping through the night more often (for most people that would be a good thing, but dying cancer patients usually sleep longer). I can’t walk as far as I could even a few weeks ago. I have a general feeling of malaise, a feeling of dying. Obviously I don’t really know what that is as I havent been here before (except in hospital just after surgery, but I wasn;t all there then), but it just feels like dying. Perhaps it is my neuroticism, perhaps it is my imagination, and perhaps I will spring back on my next blog and say what a load of nonsense I have been saying – because underlying it I cannot remove hope and optimism.

As I have said repeatedly, I don’t fear death, I fear dying. I fear dying in pain. If there is something about death I am not too impressed with it is that I would like to live longer. I am only 62, and I could have had many more years of happy life, more years of productive life, more years with family and friends. This is what bothers me more than most things. I know that once I am dead it won’t matter because I wont exist, but while I do exist it does bother me. I won’t let it get me down though, while I might have my moments of down, the bugger is not going to keep me down.

And back to my holiday. It is a nice warm day in Craster and we are off to buy some kippers – assuming I can manage to walk the 200 metres to the smokery….