My friend, Bobby Schneider, who is also a survivor, gave me Lance Armstrong's book about his battle with cancer, it has helped me so much and I try to read a little each night. Alot of the times it's not things I want to hear though. Like last night, I read the part about radiation since mine is starting soon & I don't know much about it. Lance said that the radiation causes permanent circulatory system damage and effects your balance. Great! More damage, bring it on! By the time all this is done, I'm gonna feel like one of those wrecked cars my husband is always working on, "it's totaled but is still driveable, they'll say." ha ha!
I know I don't show it and I try to keep alot inside because I don't want to burden anyone, but sometimes I really need to talk. Cancer, chemo & radiation all are very serious and very, very terrible, awful, sickening, frightening, super traumatic things. It's not like I am just going in for surgery or something, it's much, much worse than surgery, I know, I've had 5, they are a piece of cake compared to this chemo nightmare. I have no control over my brain function half the time, I am continuously short of breath now, I can't do as much as I used to, the left side of my body is all brown stains now from the chemo chemicals eating up my insides, the portacath and wire inside my chest is always itching, pulling and aching and this 'fear of chemo syndrome' (aka anticipatory nausea) has taken over, I bawled as soon as I saw the chemo room last treatment. Luckily my good friend Rusty was with me and Dr. Browning to try to calm me down and get me settled with alot of sedatives. There is just so much yucky junk that happens to your body besides the incredible nausea and pain that you see on TV. It's all this other stuff that noone tells you about. So I am telling all of you, all the lymphoma patients I have met on the Hodgkin's message boards. I wish someone had told me all this stuff.
It's also all incredibly depressing, especially since there is no cure! I find myself always wondering if these treatments are going to work, if it does, will it come back, how many ct scans am I going to have to endure in my life, for the rest of my life. Until a cure is found, my cancer monster will always be over my shoulder. Always taunting me, never letting me forget.
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PLEASE CLICK ON THIS LINK & TURN UP YOUR SPEAKERS, THIS SAYS IT ALL.........
it's only a minute or two long.
Please send it to anyone else you know who if fighting this horrible disease!
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--Eleanor Roosevelt
1 comment:
It seems that usually people tend to "change the subject" or "cut off" conversations that have any unpleasant content. The unpleasant, the unwanted, the frightening--the list goes on--all of these things are part of life. Our awareness of our own mortality allows us to connect to each other. People may not be able to fully understand cases like yours unless they have been through them, but they can understand what it is like to suffer because one is a mortal being. You'd think they'd think of that first.
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