Week 2 Starts

I’ve been lax in writing - I must do better!!!

It has been a bit of a roller-coaster ride over the last several days, lots of downs but not many ups unfortunately, but I am learning and surviving and the more I learn the better I will survive.

I has no treatment on Friday!! Just as well perhaps because Friday saw me laid lower than the last man on a totum pole!

I was banjaxed. Tired, oh so tired. I slept most of the day and the next night. This treatment was kicking my ass.

Sauturday and Sunday were not too bad but Monday returned me to the microwave and Boy did I get a dose of radiation sickness last night. Very unpleasant.

I felt it coming on in the afternoon and got progressively grumpier as the tiredness crept in, the headache started thumping and the need to food was - well, gone. I did manage to eat some and later on took an anti-nausea pill. Too late!!!!

Lesson learned.

When I have chemo, one of the potions administered is anti-nausea. So I guess that covers me mostly for chemo days. It is the days with only microwaving that I need to be more careful and be more sensitive to the possibility of an emerging puke!

Take the pill early in the afternoon on microwave-only days!

We’re in lockdown of course, everyone’s in lockdown. For myself it isn’t too much of a hardship as I cannot afford to get ill as my immune system is systematically destroyed. It is a little pleasurable, or at least slightly gratifying that no-one else can go out either. And I do get to go out!!! Yipee, five days a week to the cancer center 🙂

Linda is back to full-time work. Things are going better and she is back to help old self. Her communication ability is no worse than it was before (wink) and she’s looking after me despite my at times shitty moods.

I’ve been busy as well. Two websites on the go, and it has been hard at times to focus and have the energy to get my head into it. But it helps and it gets me away from all the other stuff that could easily flood my mind.

My headaches don’t help with any creative juices I might have left and I sometime struggle to pull thoughts together. Sometimes I struggle even to sit there and look at them.

I spoke with my friend Barbara, who is a specialist head and neck cancer nurse in the Manchester Royal Infirmary and who also, bless here spends her spare time helping out in A&E wards around the area as the cononavirus takes it’s toll on NHS staff. Her dedication is simply amazing.

Barbara helps me understand why things are happening to me, what I can do about them and how to look after myself. Sometime when we don’t feel well we tell ourselves that nothing is really wrong but are concerned. Barbara told me the way it is, was and going to be and convinced me that it is ok to feel ill, ok to feel tired, ok to feel depressed and things are going to get a lot worse before they get better. Tough love, tough luck, deal with it and be prepared for a rough ride.

Every day I wake up and look at this tube sticking out of my stomach and the life port bandages (Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays), I am reminded of the awfulness of this treatment. My body has to be taken to within an inch of its life, in order to have any life.

So, moving forwards I need to start doing more photography! I need to spend some time every day looking and observing, Discovering how to take pictures again and relearning the art o photo editing. We all lose our skills in time and mine are rusty.

Perhaps I should do a photo project all about living with and being treated for cancer? Now, there’s a good idea.

Tomorrow seems like an excellent day to start!