I'm not going to lie the last few days have been rough. I never really get ill, I sometimes get a cold or a light flu and when I do I'm usually the sickest man on the planet. Dealing with the effects of chemo however has taken me to another realm of sickness, one that makes me sit up and think bout how sick I have really been in the past i.e. not sick at all. It's C+5 (5 days after initial infusion) and I have had very little food since last week. I was weighing myself most days up until the chemo as my diet had been going downhill anyway and was managing to hover around the 76kg mark. I go nowhere near the scales at the moment as I reckon I must be crashing under 70kg by now as the intake has been almost nothing for so many days. The biggest problem at the moment is the complete lack of appetite coupled with the fact that I feel sick at the thought of food and even when I do manage to digest something I usually end end up with attacks of belching which cause painful spasms in my stomach. Last night it was difficult to sleep as the noises in my stomach were load enough to keep me awake and the belches of nausea that came along made me sit on the edge of the bed as if in a sprinter pose about to leap into the bathroom to be sick. I suppose on the upside I have not actually thrown up yet which is a good thing as I reckon the action would zap any little energy that I have left.
I'm not entirely sure what is winning at the moment, me or the cancers. Bert, the main tumour under my right arm, seems to be getting bigger by the day although every now and again seems to be smaller than it once was. I have read that during chemo tumours can grow larger whilst they are actively dying so am not entirely sure how this this is going at present only that it seems to more painful at night as I can usually get through the day without too many shots or morphine. The tumour under my left arm seems to also be changing shape, it's no longer long and thin more like a marble now and again this is either comforting in that something is happening or discomforting in that it is growing again. I have no idea what is going on and Carol and I did consider last night that if we are going to be in this much sickness and pain for the addition of a few more months together then we may consider stopping the treatment all together and just wait for the end. I kind of feel however that not getting through at least one cycle is a bit of waste and I will at least try and get that out of the way before folding my hand. You never know, miracles can still happen.
I've just had some chicken noodle soup which was amazing and has given the burst of energy I needed to get something down in this blog. This may be a turning point for me and if I can start to get some calories on board I may have some strength to fight a bit longer.
