I think my last few blog posts may have seemed quite depressing and
that some people might think I was being quite negative, but hopefully you can all
understand why. I was worried that I was constantly complaining, but after my last
post a friend going through their own cancer experience (one that is much more
emotionally challenging than mine I might add) thanked me for what I’d written
and helped me to realise the importance of being as honest as I can be in this blog,
otherwise what’s the point? So I'll continue to try and just hope that I can get a good balance.
At this time of year when the dark nights draw in and the weather becomes cold and wet I know that people usually start to feel a bit down, it’s pretty common. Since returning from Tanzania and spending my time in the north of Scotland I have to say it doesn’t quite affect me in the same way. Living near to the equator when every day is virtually 12 hours all year round you start to miss the long summer nights and short winter days, I kind of romanticised the cold dark winter evenings, and now living in this part of the world I get to witness the most dramatic skies at this time of year so I have to say I really love it. That’s not to say I haven’t been feeling low, but I know it’s not the darkness that’s causing it for me.
In my last blog I talked about how difficult I was finding the return to work, I was being very stubborn and forcing myself to go back despite advice I’d received from a number of people, in the end, however, I realised that I just wasn’t coping and had gone back when I just wasn’t ready. I saw my GP and was signed off work for a while. It was a really tough decision to make, but since doing it I've felt a weight lift off my shoulders. So, at the moment I’m concentrating on myself, trying to get both my body and mind back in good working order (yes, I know, insert joke here!). I’ve joined a gym, and although I’m not going as often as I intend to (who does? Only crazy people I think!), it is helping me to slowly build up my strength and to clear my mind for a while. I’m enjoying spending time with friends and trying to get out for walks in the beautiful highlands. I’m back attending courses at Maggie’s and have discovered I enjoy the creative writing course there as well as mindfulness. I managed a weekend away to visit friends in Rotterdam and I’m hoping to get the chance to visit some more friends in the coming weeks.
One of the hardest parts of the whole cancer ‘journey’ for me has been the feeling of loss of control and loss of self. The treatment does so much more than make you lose your hair, I have gone up a couple of sizes in clothes (due to a combination of the steroids taken for anti-sickness, the fatigue and Tamoxifen – plus the number of biscuits offered every time you go into the oncology department or Maggie’s), my mind is still not as sharp and my memory is shocking, my nails are weak and constantly breaking and my joints and muscles hurt and I still have days when I’m just exhausted for no apparent reason. Basically, I feel like I’ve aged about 20 years in less than one! On the plus side for me the hot flushes seem to have stopped but I am incredibly emotional (it’s hard to know at the moment if this is due to the Tamoxifen or if it is grief – most likely it is one exacerbating the other). As a way a of feeling some kind of control during chemo I decided to write a post-chemo ‘to-do’ list. Things on the list range from “I can’t believe you’ve never done that before” to “that’s crazy, you’re never going to do that!” so I’m not going to bore you or embarrass myself with the whole list, you might possibly hear more if I manage to tick them off, but for now here’s just one:
At this time of year when the dark nights draw in and the weather becomes cold and wet I know that people usually start to feel a bit down, it’s pretty common. Since returning from Tanzania and spending my time in the north of Scotland I have to say it doesn’t quite affect me in the same way. Living near to the equator when every day is virtually 12 hours all year round you start to miss the long summer nights and short winter days, I kind of romanticised the cold dark winter evenings, and now living in this part of the world I get to witness the most dramatic skies at this time of year so I have to say I really love it. That’s not to say I haven’t been feeling low, but I know it’s not the darkness that’s causing it for me.
In my last blog I talked about how difficult I was finding the return to work, I was being very stubborn and forcing myself to go back despite advice I’d received from a number of people, in the end, however, I realised that I just wasn’t coping and had gone back when I just wasn’t ready. I saw my GP and was signed off work for a while. It was a really tough decision to make, but since doing it I've felt a weight lift off my shoulders. So, at the moment I’m concentrating on myself, trying to get both my body and mind back in good working order (yes, I know, insert joke here!). I’ve joined a gym, and although I’m not going as often as I intend to (who does? Only crazy people I think!), it is helping me to slowly build up my strength and to clear my mind for a while. I’m enjoying spending time with friends and trying to get out for walks in the beautiful highlands. I’m back attending courses at Maggie’s and have discovered I enjoy the creative writing course there as well as mindfulness. I managed a weekend away to visit friends in Rotterdam and I’m hoping to get the chance to visit some more friends in the coming weeks.
 |
| Highland walks/beautiful sky/Rotterdam |
One of the hardest parts of the whole cancer ‘journey’ for me has been the feeling of loss of control and loss of self. The treatment does so much more than make you lose your hair, I have gone up a couple of sizes in clothes (due to a combination of the steroids taken for anti-sickness, the fatigue and Tamoxifen – plus the number of biscuits offered every time you go into the oncology department or Maggie’s), my mind is still not as sharp and my memory is shocking, my nails are weak and constantly breaking and my joints and muscles hurt and I still have days when I’m just exhausted for no apparent reason. Basically, I feel like I’ve aged about 20 years in less than one! On the plus side for me the hot flushes seem to have stopped but I am incredibly emotional (it’s hard to know at the moment if this is due to the Tamoxifen or if it is grief – most likely it is one exacerbating the other). As a way a of feeling some kind of control during chemo I decided to write a post-chemo ‘to-do’ list. Things on the list range from “I can’t believe you’ve never done that before” to “that’s crazy, you’re never going to do that!” so I’m not going to bore you or embarrass myself with the whole list, you might possibly hear more if I manage to tick them off, but for now here’s just one:
1.
Dye your hair a crazy
colour
When you’re bald and sick of people staring at you for wearing a
headscarf it’s easy to set yourself a task like that. Yeah of course when my
hair grows back I’m going to dye it a crazy colour, if cancer has taught me anything
it’s to live for the moment, have fun and stop worrying about what people think…………….at
least it did, when I was bald. Once my hair started to grow back and I began to
resemble a person with a short haircut instead of a person with cancer I became
less sure. I’m once again worrying what people might think, what will happen
when I go back to work, people will think I’ve gone crazy. So I started to
back-track, until one day when I was asked “was your hair grey before chemo?”
for about the millionth time! Just for the record, no, my hair wasn’t grey
before chemo…..because I never allowed it to be! I even had my poor mum sending
hair dye in care packages out to Tanzania! It doesn’t matter how many times
people say how much the grey suits me and what a lovely colour it is, I haven’t
chosen to be grey and I'm already feeling much older than my years! So today
I bit the bullet and went for my first haircut and colour since finishing
treatment. Thanks to the lovely ladies at Roots salon in inverness I ticked the
first thing off my to-do list, and I’m very happy with the result, although I
haven’t actually been out in public yet!
  |
| Blue! |
I'm now halfway through my Herceptin injections, which I think adds to the tiredness, so I won't finish those until May. My moods are still very much up and down which as I said earlier could be due to the hormone tablets (Tamoxifen), which I'll be taking for ten years, but despite these things I do think I'm doing a lot better than I was a month ago, and now I have blue hair to cheer me up on the days that I'm not! 😆
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