Cancer 249

I am really starting to hate nights. I was never very good at them, never very good at sleeping, and during the first couple of years of cancer I sort of managed ok, usually sleeping 3-4 hours, which seemed sufficient. Now I can’t go to bed because I can’t lie down to to breathing problem. I don’t know the cause of the breathlessness. The consultant yesterday sent me for a CT scan to see if there is a clot. There isn’t. I don;t know if that is a good thing or not because I don’t know what is causing the breathlessness. My bloods are a bit screwy but apparently that is not the cause of the breathlessness. I still feel that there is pressure from the tumours pushing on my diaphragm and making breathing increasingly difficult, but I am probably wrong. The consultant wants to check out my heart, perhaps next week.

I have had my treatment cancelled twice in the last two weeks. The consultant yesterday said I looked much worse than I did the last time she saw me. I am not sure whether she would say that to all her patients, or just patients like me. I have some difficulty talking, my skin is discoloured, I don’t have the usual cheerfulness that I like to put on when I see any medical practitioner. It didn’t work this time. So I will be seeing the consultant every week for at least three weeks while they decide what to do with me. I did say I could do with a rest from treatment as it is grinding me down. The times I want to die immediately are increasing. There are many points where I could put a gun to my head and finish it. I am not sure how much more I can deal with, which is why I want the treatment break, to see if I get a little more healthy (probably not the right word, but you know what I mean). I would also like us to be able to have a holiday somewhere, Scotland or Northumberland, and not have to get back within a six day period.

I am also hating nights now because I am mostly unproductive. I am hardly reading, I am doing little research towards my degree. I am asleep more than I was but that itself is another problem. I am sleeping at night and sleeping during the day. I am not certain about this but I always thought someone with a terminal illness tends to sleep more. I am now sitting in my chair at any time of the day and falling asleep, sometimes for minutes, sometimes for hours. The same can happen at night, thugh it hasn’t for the last few nights. If I am just going to sleep whenever I sit down what is the point of it all?

There are good times. I felt really rough this morning, but we went out for lunch to a friend’s house, with a large group of people who were all at my living wake last week. We ate pies, mash, peas and gravy, along with chocolate pudding and custard; and I know everyone is caring for me and wants me alive and doing well, and it does help (hint: invite me for lunch and supply chocolate pudding and custard). I had a good time today. I have known these people for decades, some of them since childhood, and I want the chance to spend more time with them. They help, you help.

But in the end my body is falling apart and increasingly hurting. I feel I am in another stage, a stage less pleasant than I was in a few months ago, one where there are fewer good days. In the end, what is the minimum number of good days a week that I need to have before I just want to die? Six months ago I had 10-12 good days every fortnight, now I am not sure I have any good days. I have good times, I have good hours, but full days? I have not had one for a while. Now it is more of an effort to get up and get moving in the morning, and be cheerful as long as possible. All my interactions with others help me, but in the end I am alone in my thoughts and feelings, no one can fully take away the pain and increasing levels of depression.

Still, on the bright side, I am still standing. I am still managing to do things. I can still drive. I am lapsing in getting on with my MA but I had a good supervisory meeting a few days ago and I will spend time in the next few days getting on with it (I am writing about women in early modern England, the aristocracy at the time, and considering the role of narrative in historical work). Chin up, stiffen the lips, and keep the moaning to the written page where no one has to see it.