It’s now been 2 days since I had my first
session of Chemotherapy and it is 5.30 Sunday morning and I really want a glass
of orange juice but I don’t buy juices so there is none, oh well. So, let’s
talk about the procedure, my son and I turn up about 9.15 in the morning to the
unit and it is very quiet except for the nurses on duty that morning. The
lovely Charmaine explains what she is going to do and gives me an anti-sickness
tablet to start with. She is from Trinidad and I tell her my best friend is
from Trinidad also, who she hopes to meet at some point during this process. About
40 minutes later Charmaine returns with a bag of more anti-sickness drugs, she
then inserts a needle into the port and attaches the bag to the drip. Once this
has finished she returns and injects the port with 3 huge syringes of red
liquid and then a saline solution to clean the port. Whilst she is doing this
my body starts to feel cold and suddenly, I’m really hungry. Fortunately, there
are biscuits and my son assists. I then send him off to get his hair cut as my
treatment is finished and I feel very tired suddenly. I know I fell asleep for
about 15-20 minutes as the lunch lady woke me up when she bought my soup. I was
pleased to see food and ate everything because I was so ravenous. I then had a
physio appointment which wasn’t the greatest idea because all I really wanted
to do was go to sleep. After Physio, I didn’t feel too bad so my son and I went
shopping, I was pre-empting feeling poorly and hadn’t been able to go shopping
earlier in the week. By the time we got to the checkout I was getting techy
with my son and he asked me to stop speaking to him like that. I realised that
it wasn’t fair on him and I was embarrassing him in front of other people. I
apologised to him in the car and got us home.
My friend came round with dinner, a beef stew
made out of bone marrow, which took some preparation and patience because I
watched her do it earlier in the week. Her
aim was to get some real goodness into me even if I didn’t eat a great deal. I
made some suet from the beef dripping that came off the bones and we put a suet
crust on the stew. The dinner was delicious but by the time it came to eating,
I was feeling really sick and only managed a small amount. I was feeling like I
was pregnant again with my son, which I didn’t think would ever happen again,
it was bad enough the first time. I couldn’t eat a great deal because I just
wanted to throw up and then my body went into some sort of shock and I was
really cold. All evening I felt very sick and very cold.
The following morning, I ate half a piece of
toast with a cup of tea. I didn’t like the taste of the tea, I didn’t want
coffee which is what I normally have because of the smell so it was water. I
had a lovely morning in Windsor and we went on the rowing boats and got some
fresh air even though I felt queasy most of the morning. The hospital had given
me a choice of whether I wanted to come in the following day and they administer
an injection or whether I wanted to do it myself. I opted for the second option
so I gave myself the injection into my stomach. The injection would help my
body produce white blood cells from my bone marrow which would subsequently
make my bones ache.
So as well as feeling sick my legs ached most
of Sunday and I was so frustrated with myself again for not being able to do
the things I would ordinarily do without thinking. During these few days I
noticed that when I slept I was sweating more and my clothes smelt, the sheets
smelt, so clothes needed to be washed and the flat needed cleaning, but my legs
ached so much that everything was done at a snail’s pace. As well as all this I
have managed to mess up my medications by not taking them at the right time,
but I know they are anti-sickness drugs so I’m hoping they haven’t caused me to
much disruption. I will report it though to the oncologist in any event.
I have also discovered that 3 days on, I love
the taste of salad cream and I don’t like anything sweet, any smells of any
sort except fresh air and fortunately the weather is beautiful and I can
thoroughly enjoy fresh air. Albeit, I am fed up of my body not feeling my own,
not to mention the breast having strange sensations over the last few days as
though something is moving around in it, I keep telling myself, one down and that’s
it. I’m not going to count how many are left because there is no point in
reminding myself of how long this journey really is. I’m doing today and today
alone and even though I have had tearful moments over the last couple of days,
I also have moments like now where the grass has been freshly cut and the smell
of fresh air fills my lungs whilst I sit and look out on fields blooming with
nature, reminding me that the cycle of life continues regardless.