Life in the Slow Lane (Avoiding Stress)...

Today (Monday 7th May) is the third day of my 6th cycle of chemotherapy. To say I feel like I've had enough is an un

derstatement. Each cycle seems to be a little worse than the one before, after my usual vomitting on day 1 (Saturday), the last two days have been an endurance test. As I write this, my eye lids keep drooping and I'm struggling to keep awake. One way of explaining how I feel would be this; think of the hardest days work you've ever had and how tired you felt afterwards. Now multiply that feeling by ten.... I feel as though my whole body is coated in lead, and the simple task of just staying awake is near impossible. The activities of daily living are extremely slow. For instance( thanks to nausea), it took me over an hour and a half to drink one cup of cofee and one small slice of toast this morning. Then, although showering was relatively quick, it took about an hour to get dressed (due to slowness of limbs) and all I wanted to do was sleep afterwards. And so the pattern continues, my days onsist of me sitting in the living room and falling asleep and sleeping in my room, only waking up to eat or to perform relatively low energy tasks (such as blogging on the computer...), and knowing there's more of the same tomorrow. Exhaustion isn't made any better by the fact I have to get up at 7am to take my tablets every day, or by the fact that it turns out all the other elements of life don't stop when you're having treatment. Some people heve an idea that when you have cancer, it's easy to lie back, relax and let others take care of you, when it reality this rarely happens. Not only would I find it difficult (as an extremeley independent person) to be fussed over, but my friends and family do have other things to do rather than look after me. Both of my parents are retired, and neither in perfect health, both are elderly, and my mother has problems with her skin which can flare up due to changes in weather and/ or stress. She already spends a lot of time looking after my father who is older still, and has all manner of health problems including type 1 diabetes (The hereditary insulin dependent kind, NOT the lifestyle attributed type 2), arthritis, a long term wound and mild epilepsy. I know how much my mother has to do, which means the last thing I want to do is have her run herself ragged worrying about me. Unfortunately I am living in their house, but am (for the most part) unable to help as much as I'd like due to exhaustion. I try to do a bit more on non chemo days, but am still far away from "normal" energy levels. I also have found that I am no longer able to handle stress. I was lways quite good at tough situations, but no more. My dad had a hypo a couple of days ago. Now like any child (and sister) of a lifelong diabetic, I have been dealing with hypoglycemic attacks since I was a child. Knowing to try and stay calm and get sugar into the person as quickly as possible, but this time I had a massive panic attack. This has happened a couple of times since my rediagnosis in November; I start hyperventilating and find it hard to catch my breath whilst shaking continuely, I have to be careful as these attacks can lead to a fit. I think it's my body's way of telling me to remove myself from the situation, as I'm no longer physically strong enough to deal with pressure. Thankfully my brother and mother were both around to get Dad back into the land of the living... Being on my sixth cycle of chemo is strange. Originally I was told that I would be having (only) six cycles, which would make this my last, but as I have mentioned before, my oncologist has cast some doubt on whether this is the case, whilst debating the pros and cons of an extra 2 cycles. As for me I am prepared to listed to any arguments for extra, but also prepared to stand my ground as I reaally feel enough is enough now, however I guess I'll hold on celebrating until I know for certain.