Ultimately it’s down to you

2 minute read time.

FormerMember

13 Jun 2018

I have a great network of support and they have been there since first diagnosis in 2002 - they will do anything for me, all I have to do is ask and for that I am extremely grateful but it’s on days like today that I realise that ultimately it is me and me alone that has to take the tablets, deal with the side effects and keep going as best I can - if I don’t then it’s all been for nothing. The chemotherapy is zapping my appetite - I already blow over in the smallest of winds, I am THAT skinny and although I am working with a dietitian and I know what I need to do, physically doing it is a whole other ball game. Chemotherapy fatigue is one of the factors: this is something each and everyone of us that has had probably any sort of chemotherapy will relate too. It is completely frustrating to sleep and yet still be tired, how can you eat when you don’t want to do anything and yet if you ate that would help give you energy. You need to at least walk everyday to get some sort of exercise but how can you do that when you are so tired you don’t feel you can function.

I am SO hungry for lovely food (actually just any food), and yet, put the most amazing food in front of me and it becomes a battle to eat it - you put it in your mouth and it tastes nothing like what it should because your mouths sore and your taste buds are shot and your brains saying if you eat that then in an hour or two you’re going to be sat here in pain with uncomfortable wind.

What’s needed is the opposite of a slimming pill, one that will magically get the weight back on and take the pressure off me having to eat - now that would be marvellous idea, it would give my digestive system time to recover from the battering it’s getting from the chemotherapy.

I just have to keep one thought in the back of my mind when I am having days like today, days when you could throw every cup, plate, glass that you pick up at the wall just because you are so frustrated, you’re so tired, and just want to yell at something - I have to remember that this drug might be working to restabilise this nasty cling on, it might even (this is a big ask) even shrink it slightly which ultimately will give me more time, time with the amazing people that are all around me, those that are supporting me, those that I love dearly - love that much that yes it may be rubbish to feel this way but if it gives me time with them then its a small price to pay.

No cup throwing here - just a good talking to myself and a mini me on my shoulder chanting “you can do this, you can do this, you can do this”!