I am going to drive you crazy...I am going to drive myself crazy...
I hate feeling like this! I feel almost ridiculous even saying this, but honestly right about now, I feel being struck down by this stupid whatever it is, headcold, virus - whatever, is worse than having bloody cancer. I don’t mean to be flippant, or maybe I do. But since having cancer, I have not exhibited any kinds of symptoms that feature so prominently and in your face. Not even when I had my boobs cut off...I don’t remember feeling this bloody miserable. Maybe I was and I’ve simply forgotten.
I get a bit of a reprieve from mainly the pain in my throat but the headaches have been fairly constant. They lessen for a while but don’t allow me the luxury of completing disappearing even for a short while. My head is starting to pound at full volume and the sore throat is coming back. I have filled both ears with waxsol ear drops and shoved bits of cotton balls in to block the stuff in. I have given up on the paracodeine and gone straight for the big stuff. 2 x 30mg codeine tablets. I hope they kick in soon. I am almost beside myself, I just don’t know what to do.
Drink lots of water the doctor said, the headaches are from your high temperature. I feel like I have drunk enough water to sink a battleship and my wee’s are almost clear! How much more do I need to drink and why won’t this stupid headache go away????
When hubby went down the road to pick up my script, he was given everything but the shit to gargle and numb my throat! The stuff I needed the most...I am terrified at the thought of having another night like last night hence taking the stronger painkillers. The chemist people were going to order the stuff in and it will arrive tomorrow morning. The doctor said to me if I feel like I am getting worse to start taking the antibiotics she prescribed just in case it is bacterial and not viral. Does this constitute as getting worse because its not getting any better? Or am I just being a terrible patient and being irrational and impatient?
Funny eh, that something as simple as a sore throat and a few headaches can cause me so much distress. When I stop and remind myself I have cancer in my body...cancer that has escaped through my lymph node system and buried itself into some of my bones. This is probably one of the very few times where the cancer has taken a back seat, almost completely forgotten about, and it feels great! I feel like a normal functioning person, like I used to be almost two years ago.
Two years...shit I’ve just realised it is exactly two years since I was diagnosed with breast cancer. It seems such a long time ago and so much has gone on during that period of time. The shock of being diagnosed, not just in one breast but in both. The reality of waking up after my five or six hour surgery realising my breasts which nourishd my babies have gone and implants have taken their place, and not just that, they are also smaller - at my request! Come January, it will be two years since I was told I am metastatic. Two years of my advanced breast cancer years gone...leaving me with how many more? I want time to slow down...its going too fast. It doesn’t help when I am constantly wishing it was Friday so I can have the weekend to sit and do nothing if I so wish. I remember one of the ladies at work many years ago saying to me ‘stop wishing your life away Tania’. I always used to laugh at her but also realising the truth in what she had said. But now of course, it has an even truer ring to it. My life...my shortened life because of this stupid disease.
Even if I was to survive ten years, I have had almost two of those years, leaving me with another 8. While thats quite a reasonable amount of time to live with advanced cancer, it still isn’t very long. When you don’t have this diagnosis, you still don’t know how long you will live but you have the luxury of being able to dream you will live until you are in your 80’s and to see geandchildren and possibly great grandchildren. I don’t have that luxury, not if I am being realistic. Thats not to say it won’t happen. I would love to surprise myself but I really dislike it when people say to me ‘of course your going to live for years and years’. How do they know that? Are they privvy to information that I’m not? I need to be present in the real world with no false ideals. This is my way of coping with it. And if its too hard for someone to hear it, well too bad. This is my story, my journey - I am the one who has to deal with the facts and I don’t appreciate it when what I am saying or that my feelings are being dismissed. You think you find it hard dealing with the reality of my diagnosis? Take a moment and imagine what it is like for me. Knowing I will leave my husband, my beautiful babies. God, that is what tears me up inside - rips my heart into shreds. Knowing from the day I leave this world, I will never see my beautiful daughters again and knowing they will be shrouded with grief and I won’t be here to help them. These girls whom I gave life to, these girls who already lost their father at such a young age...these girls whom I love and adore more than anyone else in the world, the reason I was put on this earth...one thing is for sure, we will all die one day, but a diagnosis of a terminal disease regardless of what it is, hangs over you from the day you are diagnosed to the day you die. What a waste of energy.
Well that put a spanner in the works didn’t it. I was going on about how my throat and head had made me completely forget about the cancer and it comes back with a bang! Neither of those things have settled down either. Still got the blasted headache and my throat is getting a little more sore. What time did I take those bloody tablets? I know they take quite a while to kick in and you are only supposed to take them every 6 hours. By the time the damn things kick in, you really only get a short reprieve.
I hope this virus or whatever it is, gets on its bike very soon. I am hating feeling like this...
It is supposed to be pink Friday at work tomorrow and I was going to go dressed up in my pink breast cancer tee-shirt, fairy wings and tiara which I wore when I did the Pink Ribbon Street Appeal. I am disappointed I won’t be able to participate but guess getting some rest and recuperation time is more important.
Friday 27th October 2017 - 12.06am
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