Session 2 is done - only 28 more to go! I have to say I’m feeling slightly more upbeat today than I was yesterday. I think yesterday the realisation that this is now my reality hit me hard – after a week of eating and drinking and just enjoying myself poolside on holdiay, I realise I had spent the last week not necessarily in denial, but also not really thinking about what was to come, or at least not really taking it seriously. This seems to be the thing with cancer - you know it’s serious, you feel you should be processing your feelings but you keep going because you have no choice. It's also the greatest irony of cancer that most people (including me) feel absolutely fine when diagnosed, and it's the treatment that makes you feel very unwell, and that's when you are pushed to your limits mentally.
My wonderful therapist said to me before surgery "Please hug yourself tight in any low moments and listen kindly to what you hear in the low moments. Those thoughts and words deserve time and space' - very wise words indeed which I heeded through my recovery from surgery. For now, though, it's one foot in front of the other to get through this and I will deal with the mental/emotional aspect afterwards.
There’s no denying yesterday was tough. It didn’t help that I also felt quite car sick. Now I am starting to get a feel for what I need to take with me to the sessions, starting with some hard-boiled sweets to help with the travel sickness. I mentioned to the lady in radiotherapy that I might need to rent an apartment close to the hospital for the last few weeks to avoid the car journeys. She suggested some travel sickness bands might be a cheaper option. She has a point.
Today, however, felt slightly better. I still had a panic when the mask went on, even though I was calm at first and was trying to convince myself I would be okay, a few minutes later I decided that I needed to have the mask off for a few moments to gather myself. The lovely staff removed the mask, I took a few moments to breathe and they put the mask back on very slowly again, bolting down a little bit at a time until I felt more comfortable with it. I have to say the team are really lovely and very understanding of any quirks that come up, or in my case mild panic about being bolted down to a table.
Today’s session seemed to go very quickly. They did the photo, removed the panels and then the machine started to move over my head, then back to the side. I think the other reason I feel better today is that after the session I had a consultation with a wellness consultant employed by the charity Penny Brohn. They work in partnership with the hospital for cancer patients to make sure that the patient is looked after, but not just from a physical perspective – that’s for the doctors to sort out – but from a whole person perspective. This is something I also look at in my working life, so I know a lot about this field, and especially its importance in someone’s wellbeing. I am very fortunate to have been offered acupuncture, reflexology and relaxation sessions to help calm me before my radiotherapy sessions. I am taking them up on every single offer as there is no doubt this is a very difficult time and I want to make the most of all of the support I am offered. It does mean that my sessions in Oxford will be longer but, with the car journey being as long as it is, it will probably be good for me to spend a little more time at the hospital before getting back in the car in terms of reducing nausea.
Today in the car I decided not to read my phone at all, nor read any messages, because I felt so unwell yesterday when I got home. Instead, I listened to an audiobook. This is the first time I have ever listened to an audiobook. This is because it’s the sort of thing I imagined doing when my eyesight was so bad that I could no longer read, but here I am in the back of a car having an audiobook read to me even though my eyesight is perfectly good (for reading at least). I chose to listen to ‘Not that kind of love’ co-written by Greg Wise and his late sister Clare Wise. Greg’s sister Clare died of cancer a few years ago and Greg was a guest on one of the ‘You, Me and the Big C’ podcasts with Deborah James, Rachel Bland and Lauren Mahon. During her illness, Clare kept a blog about her journey and, as she became too unwell to blog, her brother Greg took it over and subsequently turned into a book.
What I love about this book is that despite its harrowing content – tracking Clare’s journey through cancer and ultimately to her untimely death – it is very funny. Between the uplifting podcasts I listen to and this book, I am learning that you can find moments of happiness and humour within the cancer space. This can be a very difficult concept for people to get their head around, especially for family whose job it is to worry endlessly about you, because really, how can cancer be remotely positive?! This is often because people are either afraid to talk about cancer at all or they want to talk about it from a perspective of pity for what you are going through, and if you try to make a joke they often struggle with the humour due to the severity of the situation. But we need humour in our lives to counteract all of the negative stuff, so it’s great to read a book where there is plenty of humour, despite the awful and seemingly endless treatments.
As I go through my own cancer journey, I plan to try to find something positive and something funny every day to keep me going. I’ve already asked my friends to give me songs that either remind them of good times with me or songs they have found uplifting at a difficult time and I’m turning this into a playlist for me to listen to in the car (when I finish my audiobook obviously).
So here I am 7% of the way through my treatment (who’s counting?!) and trying hard to look on the positive side. How about tomorrow I will be 10% of the way through – that’s positivity!
I’ll end by saying the wellness consultant I saw today really helped me to see why I’m doing this. I had explained to her that I was given the choice to have adjuvant therapy or not, and I have found the choice very difficult and I continue question my decision every single day. If the doctors had told me I had to have surgery and radiotherapy, then I would accept it because that was what the doctors were telling me I needed to do to survive. But because I was given the option, I have found this decision extremely difficult. When I discussed this with the wellness consultant today, she very helpfully said to me that this treatment is a relatively short period of time during which I will feel poorly, but that afterwards, when I am living my life, l will be able to look back and believe that I made the right decision, and I will be happy I did so. It was good to hear it from someone like her because she sees this every day, and I felt better for her endorsement.
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