The Never Ending Crippling Fatigue and My Experience Post Treatment.

3 minute read time.

During my treatment and ever before my diagnosis I remember reading the stories of people who have overcome this vicious and relentless disease. They go on to conquer the world, looking almost like they never suffered. Or the people that easily slip back into normality as if life was simply on pause and they pressed the play button the second the word 'remission' was written in their notes.

This is something that for the majority is a Lie. A big fat horrible emotionally crippling lie. For me I am having a harder time now I have finished my treatment than the struggle Chemotherapy presented me. Now I am no longer on treatment I am in the unknown zone I mentioned in previous posts once more. I wait for scans and results, I wait for appointments and on the days in between I cling desperately to the hope that one day I will be able to wake up without the crippling, unrelenting fatigue that has followed me, or the chronic shoulder, back and neck pain that turns me into a curled up, sobbing wreck. I finished my treatment in December and ever since then I have been unable to wake up in the morning and simply BE awake. To be able to stretch and yawn and smile knowing the day is ahead of me. This is mostly a fantasy I get on the best days. Most days the second my alarm goes off in the second in takes me to turn it off and lay back down I am asleep again. Like someone has clicked my newly pressed on switch. I try to plan things to help me get up but the plans always go drown the drain and when they do I feel like weeping as I should feel blessed and enjoy every day of this life that Cancer didn't take from me right? I am supposed to feel better and get on with life and put it all behind me right? No, not possible. Not that simply anyway. 

Nothing other than pushing myself is going to get me through the fatigue but when the thought of putting on my prosthetic leg feels like a marathon and instead I don't even get dressed. Some days I can't brush my teeth. I retreat into my shell of computer games, fussing my dog and reading. This is all I can do to get through the day and then try again tomorrow. I am not a negative person I am usually bubbly and happy and am full of endless optimism but it's just so hard and I can't keep up the face of the ME everyone knows so some days the masks slips and I don't talk to anyone other than my mum. I don't look at my phone or check social networking sights. I can't because I feel guilty. That even though I don't have cancer right now, even though I finished my chemo so long ago I still feel like I am in the middle of a battle that only I can see and conquer.

I know there will be an end to this and that until then I just have to keep going but I had to vent this. I have kept it locked up so tight and I could not keep it in any more. I am struggling, I am tired and I am sick of all the pain. I may be in Remission but I still feel like the Cancer is winning because I just can't shake all of it;s side effects off.

I don't mean to sound like I am crumbling because I am not. I am at the weakest I have been for a long time but I have the most incredible emotional support and they are the reason I know I can get through this.

But for now just getting it out of my head and down onto here has made so much of a difference and I wanted to show any others who are struggling post treatment you aren't alone. Don't feel ashamed to struggle. We are human, we have been through hell and it's ok to have battle scars. They just take time to fade.

Thank you for reading

RedHare

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