I am still struggling through my recovery. Before I started my treatment I remember chatting to a patient in a waiting room. He told me that his recovery was worse than his treatment. I didn’t understand what he meant then but I get it now. I think in my case it’s the build-up of lots of irritating minor niggles. You get one thing sorted and then something else immediately pops up in its place. My mouth is feeling a bit better this week but now my hair is falling out again and I’ve got the old problem back with the skin around the feeding tube site. Some days I can shrug all this off, other days it just seems to grind me down.
I have a friend who was diagnosed with cancer the same time as me. She has now started her recovery and describes it as swimming through treacle. I know just what she means. She is having therapy and has been told that you need to go through a natural period of mourning for your old life. I think that may well be right. I remember years ago I had a lovely job. Generous pay, small workload, long lunches and good friends. Inevitably the firm eventually went bust and we all lost our jobs. I recall that many of us felt a sense of loss for several weeks at having an enjoyable way of life suddenly snatched away from us. I’m going through similar feelings of loss now.
My mood swings are a nightmare. I don’t know whether they are caused by my cancer or my menopause, I suspect it’s a bit of both. My team said that the chemotherapy sent me into an accelerated menopause. They have offered me HRT tablets but I said I wanted time to think about it. I hate taking medication unless it is absolutely necessary, and I have read that HRT slightly increases your chances of getting breast cancer. From what friends of a similar age are saying I think the menopause is just something grotty that you have to get on with. Some of them seem to have much worse symptoms than I have got so far.
Time feels like its dragging and progress seems to be slowing down. I can see progress from two weeks ago, but not from last week. Mum reminded me that I have been through recoveries before. When I was at school I had to recover from a broken ankle, an appendix operation and glandular fever. I remember feeling very low and not being able to visualize ever getting better again. I must have got through it somehow though, I wish now I’d kept a diary. It has been pointed out to me that even if my recovery now takes a year then that’s only 1/54th of my life so far, less than 2%. A very small price to pay for getting better.
There was a very helpful comment after my last blog post which has encouraged me to try to think of the positives about my situation. I am now going to go away and try to think of 20 good things that have come out of me having cancer.
