Another post chemo whine

I cannot convey to you how exhausting I find showering. I feel good prior, like maybe a walk and a long black are on the cards once I clean myself up a bit - remove the drool marks from my face and calm my Jedward hair down, but afterwards I stumble out of the bathroom, panting and dizzy desperate for the couch. Now the room has a rocking spinning sensation, a sensation I had not experienced since I was either six years old or drunk, before this cancer thing.  Right now I am neither of those, although I fear some may liken my persistent complaining to that of a six year old. 

The days directly after chemo were not that bad. It seems my body is becoming conditioned to the fortnightly onslaught of poisons. My parents, who arrived to help out, must have been sorely disappointed by my upbeat attitude. Either that or I am vastly over representing my woefulness, although I have always felt that a woe was subjective, a bit like pain. 

Having had Tuesday pass by reasonably successfully, I was mindful that my body was probably about to be pummelled.  I was not wrong. Although Wednesday started off well, I may have been overly confident in my ability to survive an entire day. By midday I am already fatiguing, my muscles weighing me down, I am sure if I stand these lead laden limbs will drop me to the floor. I am an emotional wreck, everything is wrong; in the house, in the city, in the country, in New Zealand, in the world. How am I going to save the world if I can’t even shower without needing a nap? Should I be showering at all? There is a drought in New Zealand, maybe I should be conserving water? (I’ll tell you now that there is most certainly not a drought in Britain, so maybe that thought was at the more irrational end of the spectrum). I won’t even go into the thought process of whether, morally, I should be accepting treatment. Given Hodgkin’s is a Western disease and given that I am a biologist, is this not nature saying I am the weakest link? Isn’t that what I believe? Should research efforts be concentrated on more pressing concerns in humanity, rather than prolonging the life of an individual who has led a relatively selfish existence? Am I not a total walking contradiction, as these cytotoxins have most certainly been trialed on animals before they ever reached my veins? Or, for those that are less concerned about vivisection, how should I feel considering they destroyed millions of lives as a biological weapon of war before their therapeutic aspects had been discovered? What sort of agony were the poor bastards in the trenches going through, given what I am suffering with controlled doses? 

Well, that was an unexpected diversion into my psyche. Welcome to my brain! Those are the sort of questions that regularly buzz around my head, and normally I can handle them appropriately, or I get drunk and ramble on and on to anyone within earshot. Some may argue that I don’t even need the alcohol. My point is, in an ordinary situation, I can suitably deal with these thought patterns. But when my physical state starts to decline, those thoughts can become a little overwhelming. Don't worry, there is no need to call Lifeline. I am just getting a little Hesse on you all. Nothing like a suicide joke to lighten the mood. And Hesse didn't kill himself, he lived to the ripe old age of 85. So there you go.  

Back to Wednesday; my body and mind rapidly deteriorating, fatigue setting in but no sleep will arrive. Thursday morning; two nights of poor sleep, hours lying awake trying to solve the problems of the world, not-so-magic pills are slowly becoming empty-calorie-pills. There I was worrying about dependency when realistically biological resistance was the main concern. I am either too hot or too cold, which is instigating a slight but frequent chattering of teeth and complete discolouring of my lips. Despite my total exhaustion, I cannot sleep, not even a daytime nana nap. My pen feels as if weighs a kilogram in my hand; this is quite possibly the hardest physical workout I have had in weeks. I am hungry but don’t want to eat. I want to eat but then I am not hungry. Avocado on toast is underrated in such situations. I am just saying. All the regular culprits are voicing their dissatisfaction the only way they know how – by initiating pain. A lymph node behind my ear has decided it would like to be included into my ever growing pool of hated body parts. I didn’t even realise it was enlarged until very recently. Have I mentioned my left arm? I had best not get into that rant. It will suffice to say that I am not opposed to the idea of amputation, with or without anaesthetic.

Putting aside the pain and fatigue, (have I mentioned the fatigue yet?) I still think I would barely classify as a fully functioning human. I seem to have developed a fondness for knocking everything over, my water bottle now resides upturned on the floor; there is no point in picking it up just to have it knocked down again in a few minutes. Mike has started placing the remote out of my reach, elsewise he will never be able to locate it. For an object that is not cylindrical, it sure can roll. My ability to form a cohesive string of thoughts is severely hindered; this entry has taken five days to resemble anything remotely lucid. Usually the word or thought I am trying to convey escapes me, and then I get exceptionally irritated at myself. Simple tasks such as loading the dishwasher, require a written plan of attack, and, potentially, a well authored SOP. Any volunteers? To be fair, I think I had to pass a competency test in order to be allowed near Mike’s dishwasher in Nelson. It only took nine years. Maybe my dishwasher loading capability has never been a strong point.

I think it may be time to wrap up my whine for the week. My left arm is causing me unrelenting grief, my liver, my gall bladder, my spleen, my neck, my lower abdomen, my pelvis, my chest, my throat but not my mouth – horrid mouthwash gets a win there, are all contributing to the discomfort. The spontaneous nose bleeds have reached a frequency where I no longer even bother to clean the congealed blood from my nostril. I bet I resemble a total cokehead. Maybe I should move to the City of London; I wouldn't look out of place there. But I do feel a substantially better than I did last week. I am hoping to go back to work next month; I’ll probably need IV caffeine, and a nose plug.