Cancer 235
I have felt ghastly these last few days. I am not impressed by the side effects of chemo. I was very lucky for the first couple of years in that most of the time I had few such effects. Now they are, I won’t say unbearable, because humans can put up with anything if they have to, but they are very unpleasant. It is difficult to describe the feelings. There is a sickness throughout my torso, no doubt as a direct result of poisoning, but it is a feeling I have never had before chemo. It is not like any other illness. I feel sick yet I still want to eat – or I don’t want to eat. My balance is affected, it is hard to get up from my chair. The tiredness is overwhelming. I hate the nights now. Up until recently I would get up in the middle of the night, spend a few hours awake, then go back to bed. Now that doesn’t work too well (though I am doing it tonight). I try to sleep through the night but I need to urinate every 10-20 minutes. I have taken to going into the spare room and having a bottle to piss in, with the idea that I then won’t wake up properly so I will go back to sleep. But it is so uncomfortable. I have difficulty lying down because – presumably – of the pressure of the tumours on my diaphragm. I am breathless in bed. I sit up and I am OK, and I can gradually move to the lying down position, but if I get up I have to start the process again. If I lie straight down I can’t breathe.
I have a stereotype of someone who is dying. They sit in their chair and keep nodding off. That is what I am doing now. I sit in my chair; I go to sleep, sometimes a deep sleep, sometimes just a nodding off. Whether I get slleep or not I am still always tired. I was on the previous treatment, but it was manageable. I was just tired. Now it affects my whole life. My chemo brain is also getting worse. Perhaps the biggest part is forgetting words, but earlier tonight I woke up in bed and I could not work out where I was. I know we all do that occasionalky on waking up, but I could see what I thought was a window or door, and I could see the position of the bed in the room. It was almost an intellectual exercise to work out where I was. I was in my normal bed in my normal bedroom, where we have slept since movig into the house nearly 14 years ago. At one level I knew that I was having a problem, that I couldn’t work out wherer the door was, or where the bedroom was in relation to the rest of the house – I couldnt even work out which house I was in – but it took me several minutes to resolve it. I was actively trying to remember where the door was and I couldn’t remember. I was actively trying to remember where the house was and I couldn’t remember. It was a little odd.
At the moment I am still able to work on my history thesis. I can still write. I can still hold 90% of a conversation, but who knows what the future holds? Oh yes, I do know, don’t I?
If the last few rounds mean anything then hopefully I will feel a little better tomorrow (today), and for the rst of the week until, and if, my treatment starts again. I hope so, as it is my birthday on Friday. I am reaching 63, the age my sister was when she died of cancer just after I had my operation. If you dont have my address to send me the huge parcels that contain my birthday presents then I can send it to you. Though what does a dying person need for his birthday? I cannot resist books, though the pile by the side of my chair is too big for me to get through. I don’t really need anything else. What can a person like me want for a birthday present, apart from a new clean abdomen and a promise from a non-existent god that my cancer is cured? OK , forget it. I don’t need any presents.
Except people. I still want people. I still need you lot, so don’t go away just yet.
And now I will just have a little nap.
Dr Nigel Hunt 
s So sorry you’re suffering, Nigel. This was a hard read. I really hope that the new few rounds of chemo turn things around, particularly with regard to the pain and discomfort.
Happy birthday in advance. May your day on Friday be filled with lots of reading, lots of writing, loving visits from friends and family, and may warm cups of tea!
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