Just in case people start to think I walk around emanating positivity, I felt I should write about my day today.
The last 6 days I have been off the chemo drugs and I had begun to get my energy back. We’ve got lots of bits and bobs done around the house, which has been good. But today was day one of chemotherapy round 2. I prepped myself by looking back at the diary I have been keeping where I record any side effects and medication taken, so I knew I would have a painful arm and tingling sensation in my hands and feet as well as the hypersensitivity to cold.
The intravenous Oxaliplatin was really uncomfortable going into my vein, more so, I think, than last time. I got home and felt a bit yucky so rested for a while. Then I called the hospital to gets the results of my blood tests done two days ago. Now I’m still learning about what the blood test results mean, so I looked up the parameters for pre chemo bloods and found myself on the cancer research uk website. This showed me that I am still within the acceptable parameters for ‘normal’ bloods. My platelets have dropped but not too low, but otherwise numbers for white blood cells etc were more or less in line with the pre chemo bloods taken last time.
However, I then began clicking on links to other pages of the website specific to my type of cancer... big mistake! I started reading survival statistics (which my oncologist will not entertain, as he says we cannot predict life expectancy right now). I got myself really down and upset, even though I know they are statistics, averages, and even though I was already aware that the prognosis wasn’t great. I’ve spent the rest of the day randomly crying and needing to sort my head out.
I’ll be ok tomorrow; it’s just one of those really down days! 😢
And I just want to add that I wouldn’t be able to deal with these days if it wasn’t for Andy, who seems to know when a hug/ an “it’s ok to cry.”/ a return to rational perspective/ a ‘just need to leave her alone’ is required (I don’t know how he does that when he is clearly having to assimilate the shit show that is currently our lives!).
