The first thing I thought looking back at Cycle 1, is that I was actually a lot rougher, following the Chemo, than I felt at the time… put another way, I think that by the end of the Cycle, I was feeling an awful lot better than what I felt had become the norm, when coming into treatment… To say this another way; when I was in agonies of acid indigestion and back ache and a pain running up the right hand side of my chest, then into my neck, head and teeth – I was sort of OK with that; it was containable with Paracetamol, Codeine, Omeprazole and ranitidine…. It was just a gradual state of decay that I’d somehow got used to… I hope this makes some sense…
Diet; was crucial for me in the first few days – breakfast was (and still is – only now with the addition of sausage) poached eggs on well chewed light toast – heavily buttered with no salt – horrible Complan for lunch and creamy pasta of some variety for Tea – with tinned ham (need the protein so I’m told)... my handy hint is a generous knob of butter improves most things and also helps with the swallowing – nothing seems to improve the taste of Complan – though I haven’t tried coconut milk which may be worth a shout…
Sleeping; Because this cancer is interfering with the valve between the junction of the oesophagus and stomach, in order to keep everything down, I’m having to sleep on a heap of pillows which I loathe and detest… I tend to sleep in 2 hourly bursts – followed by an hour or 2 awake – though I don’t spend any more elapsed time in bed…
Mood; I should also mention here that the first week dragged horribly – nothing seemed to be happening and I felt like I was looking at 9 weeks of inertia and general thumb twiddling until the next scan - to find out if anything had shrunk/become better contained/done something; an incredibly mind numbing and frustrating thought… But,when, after a week or so, I started feeling an improvement, the next couple of weeks fairly roared past with high spirits – so happy in fact that I’ve spent far more than I should on Interflora for my vintage Aunts birthday… hopefully a good investment though! There you go – a fine example of positive planning!
As I mentioned, after day 7, things started to improve dramatically – most of the pain went, swallowing became a lot easier and my head cleared a little - though I’m finding that I can only concentrate in hourly bursts; by 3 in the afternoon I need a power nap for an hour or so… possibly more.
When Cycle 2 appeared on Friday just gone - I felt roughly the same as I did before I first went in to see Daktari about the small problem I had swallowing last year… so hurrah for that – something is definitely happening – whether it’s happening enough remains to be seen of course…
