I'm sitting here trying not to think of what tomorrow will bring and trying to hang on to living in the moment of right now of feeling relatively "normal" despite a mouth full of ulcers and a catheter in my lung and knowing that the last 2 days of enjoying the simple pleasures of enjoying preparing and eating food,even enjoying taking the laundry out and having the energy and motivation to put it on the line,will probably soon be a distant memory as I restart the cancer drug that my poor body has struggled to tolerate over the last 30 or so days resulting in back-to-back very high temperatures which caused me to hallucinate for the 1st and hopefully last time in my life!
It's been a while since my last post and as you may have guessed things have relapsed again for me- just 9 weeks ago ( with the rearing of cancer's ugly head in the lining of my lungs which has caused fluid to develop as a reaction and I've had to have an in-dwelling pleural catheter inseted in my lung and have been able to manage the draining on my own for 6 weeks.
As well as this big shock re-diagnosis just 2 days after a wonderful week in Lake Garda,Italy totally unaware that the reason I was feeling so tired and breathless and coughing like a smoker,I was also in the process of buying a new house in order to downsize,reduce bills and mainly get somewhere without the 22 steps up to the front door whilst I was feeling relatively well or so I thought!!
So after the devastating scan on 30th May,having the catheter inserted on 16th June,getting an unrelated debilitating virus on 17th June I moved house (with support and help of most amazing friends)on 26th June and then started my new 2 tablet combo on 1st July.
It's all been a tremendous shock - I seem to be jinxed as my previous move in 2002 from London to Wales happened the day I was initially diagnosed with breast cancer!!
As all who know me are aware I've always been and am a very sunny-natured person who loves life - much like my father who was also taken by cancer - but I do have low moments when I think why me and that I can't endure anymore but then there's always some sign or message or encouragement to carry on.
My message was a salient one - last week at the cancer hospital I saw for the first time in nearly 12 years treatment there,a small child of about 3,wrapped in a blanket with a bald head, clearly from chemo carried lovingly by her mother. It nearly broke my heart - they have a separate entrance for the children so that the children aren't so scared by the adults undergoing treatment. I realised in a flash that if I was a mother I would want to undergo the treatment and the disease instead of my child and that if that young child who knows so little of life and should't have to undergo or know the pain of cancer and treatment can endure it so can I.
Without my amazing friends and support network I don't know how I'd have the strength to carry on - to continue to be basically fed poison in the hope that it gives me more time - it won't cure me and I can't help thinking that the last 5 and half years I've had of relative stability might be the last "stability" I'll have but I have to keep hopeful and planning adventures and just appreciate the moments I feel like myself.
It's interesting the people that stay more in the background and those who've known you all your life and just stay in the background. What to say - what to do - none of us know including those of us living with terminal illness. All of us in life just need to value what we have in each moment and really appreciate it. We say often in life "it's never too late" - well unless you believe in re-incarnation or an afterlife - there is a too late. Hold your loved ones close to you and never forget to tell them how you feel about them.
It's been a while since my last post and as you may have guessed things have relapsed again for me- just 9 weeks ago ( with the rearing of cancer's ugly head in the lining of my lungs which has caused fluid to develop as a reaction and I've had to have an in-dwelling pleural catheter inseted in my lung and have been able to manage the draining on my own for 6 weeks.
As well as this big shock re-diagnosis just 2 days after a wonderful week in Lake Garda,Italy totally unaware that the reason I was feeling so tired and breathless and coughing like a smoker,I was also in the process of buying a new house in order to downsize,reduce bills and mainly get somewhere without the 22 steps up to the front door whilst I was feeling relatively well or so I thought!!
So after the devastating scan on 30th May,having the catheter inserted on 16th June,getting an unrelated debilitating virus on 17th June I moved house (with support and help of most amazing friends)on 26th June and then started my new 2 tablet combo on 1st July.
It's all been a tremendous shock - I seem to be jinxed as my previous move in 2002 from London to Wales happened the day I was initially diagnosed with breast cancer!!
As all who know me are aware I've always been and am a very sunny-natured person who loves life - much like my father who was also taken by cancer - but I do have low moments when I think why me and that I can't endure anymore but then there's always some sign or message or encouragement to carry on.
My message was a salient one - last week at the cancer hospital I saw for the first time in nearly 12 years treatment there,a small child of about 3,wrapped in a blanket with a bald head, clearly from chemo carried lovingly by her mother. It nearly broke my heart - they have a separate entrance for the children so that the children aren't so scared by the adults undergoing treatment. I realised in a flash that if I was a mother I would want to undergo the treatment and the disease instead of my child and that if that young child who knows so little of life and should't have to undergo or know the pain of cancer and treatment can endure it so can I.
Without my amazing friends and support network I don't know how I'd have the strength to carry on - to continue to be basically fed poison in the hope that it gives me more time - it won't cure me and I can't help thinking that the last 5 and half years I've had of relative stability might be the last "stability" I'll have but I have to keep hopeful and planning adventures and just appreciate the moments I feel like myself.
It's interesting the people that stay more in the background and those who've known you all your life and just stay in the background. What to say - what to do - none of us know including those of us living with terminal illness. All of us in life just need to value what we have in each moment and really appreciate it. We say often in life "it's never too late" - well unless you believe in re-incarnation or an afterlife - there is a too late. Hold your loved ones close to you and never forget to tell them how you feel about them.
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