Recovery - end of week 5

It has been a little while since I last posted, and I am pleased to say that yesterday marked five weeks since my last day of treatment. This isn’t a particularly significant milestone, but I feel it deserves recognition nonetheless because it puts further distance between me and the cancer. My current recovery trajectory continues to be similar to how it went throughout treatment, i.e. very up and down. At this stage, because my physical appearance is relatively normal, my behaviour is pretty normal (apart from lots of lying down) and because I am able to eat reasonably normal foods, it’s easy to think I am fine. I don’t just mean the perceptions of others. I am guilty of thinking this myself. In honesty, because I was fortunate enough to get through treatment reasonably uneventfully, I had half expected, five weeks later, to be feeling so much better by now. The reality, however, is that I feel far from normal (or I should probably say ‘back to my pre-cancer self, because let’s be honest, who is truly normal in this world?!).

For a start, my sleep patterns have gone haywire. I just cannot fall asleep at night and I find myself clock watching long into the early hours. In general, my days go something like this –

9.30/10am - wake up very slowly – the struggle is real! - lie in bed for a while having cuddles with the cat and reading the news, emails, etc., until I finally manage to force my sorry self out of bed

11am – hop in the shower and get dressed

11.30am - have a little lie down because showering and dressing has completely wiped me out

12.30pm – force myself to go out for a walk with the dog

2pm – come home and spend 1-2 hours on the sofa watching mindless TV before the girls come home from school and take over the sofa and the TV

I’m usually back up and on my feet for the evening, helping them with whatever they need, sorting school uniforms, homework, etc. I then try to go to bed around 10pm to read for a while before switching my light off no later than 11pm, but it takes me so long to get to sleep I then struggle to wake up the next day. It’s a vicious circle, and thankfully most mornings I don’t have to wake up early, but I find the constant tiredness incredibly frustrating. I am looking forward to a time when I don’t feel like this anymore. It seems it's not just me though - a Macmillan nurse called today to offer me a place on an online Macmillan workshop called "Managing Cancer-Related Fatigue'. There is also one called "Sleep and Tiredness through Cancer and Beyond" - clearly I am not alone.

When I was working, I used to dream of days like this. Days where I could lie in bed until 10am, only having to think about getting up to walk the dog and watch TV. I used to listen with envy to my friends who didn’t work, who would ask if I had watched the latest Netflix trending series. I never managed to find time to watch TV then so my reply was always no. Since having cancer, I feel like I’m living in a parallel universe compared with my previous life. And yet, I am finding it is far from the blissful image that I had in my head. Perhaps it is because I am so used to being busy. Perhaps it is because my mind is too full of whirring thoughts to be able to relax and enjoy this period of rest. Perhaps it is because I am resentful of the fact that it took cancer to force me to slow down, and therefore I feel as though this enforced rest has been thrust upon me and I did not choose it, therefore it can’t be enjoyable. It is probably a combination of all of these. I just hope I can manage to enjoy it for a short time before I go back to work!

Meals are still purely functional, and I would go so far as to say not at all enjoyable. Today, Rich bought one of my favourite loaves from a local bakery – an overnight granary loaf that is soft and fluffy inside with a delicious seeded crust. Tasting it made me realise quite how poor my sense of taste is. It tasted like cardboard with a hint of cinnamon, even though the loaf contained neither of those ingredients. Throw in a dry mouth due to limited saliva and it made it all rather unpleasant.

I’m sad to say the pesky blister lives on. There are some days it feels less sore and I get excited thinking it may be packing its bags, and others when it is agony at every bite. Certain foods irritate it more than others, but it is all still very much a case of trial and error. I tried a tiny piece of kiwi today while making a fruit salad for Lily. My initial reaction was my tastebuds doing somersaults at some delicious fresh fruit, followed swiftly by pain; an intense stinging sensation that burned underneath my tongue. I stopped taking opiates a few days ago as I no longer suffer with throat pain thankfully. I would describe it as discomfort more than pain at this stage – I still produce thick mucus and my throat has a very dry, scratchy sensation much of the time, along with pain from blister. But the burning throat has gone and I am so thankful for that. All that said, it is no small wonder that cake is still my core food at the moment! 

On the subject of cake, Lily was recently nominated to bake some Halloween cookies for a school Bake Off competition. Here's what she took - 

Dog walks are still daily, although it has now become a lottery of ‘what time to leave the house and not get soaked through’ because there has been some very heavy rain recently. Neither of us actually looks forward to leaving the house when it’s like this. Actually, since my breakfast adventure two weeks ago, I have barely left the house at all, other than to walk the dog. I like to think I am merely hibernating through the awful weather and darkness; curling up and hiding away for the winter, rather than being antisocial and avoiding going out! 

There was very mixed weather on my dog walk this morning. The sky ahead of me was full of thick, ominous grey cloud, but above the cloud the sun was trying hard to break through. It made me think about life in this context – life will always bring some cloud and rain, but it will also bring sunshine and brightness, and we need both to grow and thrive. Ideally, though, I would like to try to avoid any more of the colossal thunderstorms I have experienced over the past 18 months.

In closing, I would like to pay tribute to an amazing man who very recently died of cancer. It is tempting to use softer language, to say he lost his battle with cancer and passed away, but the reality is that it was never a fair battle and he died far too young. My thoughts are with his lovely wife, who has been there for me through my own cancer journey, and his gorgeous daughter. Rest in peace Martin, you will never be forgotten 💔