Title: as sung like Beyonce
3:40 am and it’s the third time I’ll have been up. I am in excruciating (quick look-up of the word to make sure I’m not exaggerating.. nope!) pain with a sore throat on one side, in fact I think it might be an ear infection. You know when your mouth produces too much saliva and you constantly have to keep swallowing but every time you swallow it is literally toe curling to the point where your whole chest moves to help accomplish the swallowing? Doctors tomorrow for sure (although I’ll have to book a telephone consultation first of course so as they can decide whether or not they want to see me … rolls eyes).
Anyway, am feeling very sorry for myself which seems to be a recurring theme lately. On my second trip downstairs this morning, at around 2pm, I felt compelled to find my ‘green book’ that had all my chemo sessions recorded. Reason being, having this sore throat reminded me that almost this exact time last year (August bank holiday), I had a sore throat, chills, fever etc… and ended up in hospital with neutropenic sepsis. Whilst those symptoms were as a result of me fighting infected wisdom teeth and possibly an insect bite on my leg (which I also have another one of now - weird) it is a brutal reminder of my hospital stay and how terrified I felt at that time. So anyway, back to the green book… sure enough, my first chemo was 15th August 2017. I thought, how strange it was that I’d been in the bathroom crying in the early hours and I was in this same position exactly a year ago but for different reasons. This thought made me sob for a good 10 minutes downstairs on my own into my dressing gown. And I’m not saying ‘on my own’ like ‘poor me, no one was comforting me’, I purposely went downstairs and shut the door in order so that I could cry on my own. I just felt I needed to cry, you know? About feeling shite, about chemo, about how emotionally tough it’s been… sometimes you just need to go with it, with crying. Don’t question exactly why you are crying, just accept that you need to and let it all out.
Bit doom and gloom this post, sorry, but, as ever, I felt the need to share this experience with the people who might be going through the same thing post treatment. I feel like, in the last couple of months, the whole experience of having cancer and cancer treatment is really catching up with me. I’ve had a few ‘flash backs’ although I’m not sure they can be called flash backs (will have to look it up) or rather just memories, triggered by.. well, I’m not sure what they were triggered by, quite subtle they are.. memories of having chemo specifically. I seem to keep being reminded about what I’ve been through (excuse the drama). And not just me, my family and friends as well. Only recently have I started to fully sympathise with what they’ve all been through, especially Matt and the kids… and my parents. When you feel your own life is at risk, you tend to become a bit selfish which of course you have to, as you’re in survival mode. You just do what you need to get by. And it takes a long time to come back from this, emotionally.
I would say these last few months have been the toughest as a survivor so far. All the issues that were present pre-diagnosis, which were put in a ‘not important’ basket when I was having treatment, have suddenly been thrown right back out at me. I’ve had feelings of guilt for things that I did, attitudes I took after my diagnosis and whilst undergoing treatment, which have made me increasingly anxious. There is some challenging behaviour from the children which I believe probably stems from lack of discipline and routine when I was poorly. As a family, it’s hard to recover from but we are hopefully getting some help. And I feel it’s important to get help as a family. Everyone’s wellbeing is affected when someone has cancer or any life-threating illness. I wondered if it was some kind of post-traumatic stress that we were experiencing, so I was Googling that at about 3am and turns out that can happen with cancer patients and, indeed, family and friends or anyone who is a caregiver to the cancer sufferer. So, we’ve got some work to do as a family but I’m optimistic... most days anyway. Sometimes it feels like the damage is greater than we can cope with and I don’t know where to start but then you’ve just got to ‘start’, haven’t you, which we have.
To sum up these last few months, I would say they have been emotionally very tough and, whilst I feel very lucky and relieved to be a survivor and have finished treatment, with that comes the fear of being ill again. I would say I’m quietly very cautious i.e. mentally I don’t want to allow myself to get too carried away with being well, just in case I have cancer again one day. I realise this sounds terribly depressing, but I imagine it’s quite normal. Even though I am a survivor, ultimately the experience will stay with me for the rest of my life, and it will take time to process and come to terms with I’m sure.
Anyway, there is lots to catch up on and write about as part of my survival story but for now, I should probably try to go back to sleep whilst the ibuprofen is still taking the edge off..
Thanks for listening x