Hi
I’ve been self isolating, apart from carefully planned trips to the hospital for bloods and chemo, since early February. I live alone and I am 64 and was diagnosed with Grade 3 TNBC pre Christmas . I had a mastectomy followed by 4 rounds of chemo . How have I got through this ? Here’s how....
I have taken each night, day and sometimes each hour or minute as it comes. I have had the support of friends and family and it is amazing who can persist and last the course. I wake each day good or bad and look for what makes me smile and know that each and all of these miseries will pass though sometimes it’s unbearably hard. Confinement means I have to focus on what I have always taken for granted and see the best in it.
- I have the opportunity to love the emerging blossoms on the trees in my neighbours beautifully tended garden or the toddler running on the nearby grass without a care in the world or the images from gardens on Gardeners World or the programmes on television of beautiful places I’ve yet to visit and beautiful people doing amazing selfless things.
Sometimes this has been very hard to do but I will not give up. It has already been twelve weeks and unlike the rest of the nation I’ve been unable to participate in the food frenzy that has gripped us all so I love instead ‘ the taste’ of the beautiful examples of goodness and care we have seen all around us.
I have however also found somethings that helped me
I found a ‘white’ diet worked best so I ate rice pudding, Italian ice cream, small pieces of baked white fish, fine boiled rice, raspberry coulis, apple sauce, plain yoghurt, baked potatoes, mild real cheese, sweet tinned peaches made into smoothies with water, poached eggs, unsalted butter, porridge, cold water ,and sips of ice cold “Bottle green juice “ when nothing else worked. I ate not at mealtimes but as and when and what I wanted but tried always to “ keep my fluids up” . When I lost the plot I tried to refocus myself by thinking of which of the basics would most help.
Did I need a shower, some cream on my newly dried out skin, a sip or two of some thing cold a bit of sustenance or a bit of comfort?
I made time my own and slept ate etc as I needed. In a way I feel that I was lucky to be alone because I did not have to consider another’s immediate needs. The hardest thing was giving myself the injections after the steroids and the bruising I suffered reassured me that I was not ‘havering’ when I told others of my ongoing left side weakness following my stroke.
I also reverted to memories of my misspent youth and comforted myself with YouTube funnies, and musical memories Joan Baez 33 August and Forever Young and Melanie’s Beautiful People and Babe Rainbow , Bob Marley’s Don’t Worry , Beatles When I’m sixty four along with Andre Rieu’s O Milo Bambino Caro to name but a few.
I plan to learn how to ride an ebike and once again play the piano. I will dip my toes in warm waves gently lapping a crystal clear Italian Shore
I promise myself that I will never again wake so distracted by the pressures of my previous ’normal life’ that I will miss who and what has sustained me through this most challenging of times.
Onwards and Upwards
