An explanation for the things I cannot do....

Wednesday, November 21, 2018

Another update for you.


It's been a weird old time. First things first, I went to Harefield to get these little lungs checked over and they are doing better than any of us could have hoped. Lung function had actually improved a tiny bit and my consultant told me I'm 'indestructible' (he's a tough man to impress)! He was really happy to see me doing well lung wise and I was happy to thank him for the advocating of treatment he did on my behalf. 

Other things haven't been quite so good. To put it in simplest terms I feel really crap most of the time. My aforementioned consultant did say it's to be expected as this year of treatment would floor a healthy person let alone someone with my added problems. That doesn't help me day to day tho. 
This is probably going to be a bit of a blah blog but I thought it might be cathartic to write, and at the moment I need any help I can get. 

It has been a year where I have once again been faced with the stark reality of my own imminent death. This has not only effected me physically with treatment, I have to remind myself I have had 17 weeks of chemo plus many other powerful drugs and two surgeries, one being major and resulting in the removal of half my stomach. However usually, what I do to help get through these days is think of what things I will do after. Couple this with essentially living life in 3 month chunks between scans and it makes you pretty keen to live your life as best you can particularly when it's likely to be shorter and much of it is spent doing treatment or suffering illness. 

I have run at life and booked in things. I'm now completely being pulled under by those things. I have been to see my friend to celebrate her birthday last weekend, I am off to the Ideal Home show on Friday, I am visiting another friend next week for a few days and then going to Copenhagen for 3 days, the trip I missed due to my cancer diagnosis last year. There are days between these adventures but my body just isn't bouncing back.
I want to do Christmassy things, go shopping, wrap presents and I'm really struggling because physically I just can't. I'm having to stop and sit more often, I'm cold all the time, hurting and absolutely exhausted, but with this desire to go out and live the crap out of my favourite time of year. 

My life has basically been a never ending stream of illness, of friends in my position dying all around me, with more curveballs health wise than I could expect, it gives you an insatiable need to live up the times in between. 
I ate some crisps yesterday which somehow cut my sensitive mouth to ribbons and I am also covered in bruises to the extent I look like a Dalmatian there are so many. Today I went to a high street to look in a couple of shops. I had a massive hypo (sugar low) and sat down, the cold hurt my bones so I sat in Costa, had something to sort sugars, came out, felt that familiar gurgling of the stomach and had to call my dad to rush me home because I was desperate to use the loo. Then I slept for two hours this afternoon. And that's how every day seems to go. It's difficult to concentrate, I'm too exhausted to get up and I get nothing done. I'm constantly attending to health needs.
.

I'm so eternally grateful to still be alive, to have working lungs and be cancer free for now but it is that joy to be alive that makes it harder to not do what I long to be able to. I cutback on plans but still it's impossible, or I force myself to do things but suffer for days after and a lot of the joy is lost when you feel awful.

I have so many things I want to attend at this time of year and loads of friends I've had to repeatedly put off seeing during treatment but I just can't manage it. I worry they'll think I don't care or don't like them, that they'll be offended. It's a stretch to even text some days. If you're reading this please please don't think I don't want to see you, you honestly can't imagine how many tears I've shed over it. 

I was told that mentally it may be very tough once treatment is over. I didn't realise how difficult it would be. I'm so overwealmed and upset I can't do everything, or even most days, anything. I rely on my parents for so much and I don't want to. We have no idea if I'll get better than this or this is 'new normal'. It's made me really depressed if I'm being completely honest. Physical always effects mental health.

So that's my update. I'm hoping it will explain a bit why I'm so flakey and how much I want to see people but it's not always possible. Keeping my head above water alone feels like an impossible task right now.

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