Dear All,
Since my last post, I have had a series of mostly good days. Admittedly, despite a Round #6 which I believe to have won, the side effects still lingered for many days, coming in waves. It plays with your mind; one day you begin to feel better and think, "Great, the cloud is lifting, we're coming out of the tunnel", and the next you wake with nausea, aches and a general feeling of malaise and think, "I feel worse than yesterday...when will this ease up?" I guess that I still have not come to fully accept the ebb and flow, or the rollercoaster as I call it, that characterises this process and which reminds me, time and time again, that I should not predict, that I should not assume, that I should not expect. On Friday, for example, I took an unexpected nose dive. I got up feeling awful - mouth ulcers, nausea, deep fatigue, again that "unplugged" feeling, and very, very emotional. From one day to the next, boom! All day, I could not come out of it, and by the evening, I was not in good spirits. Chiara says that on those bad mid-cycle days, she can just tell the effects of chemo not only on my body, but on my personality - I am quiet, "absent", distant, closed, tearful... The next morning, my body felt completely different: it felt "normal" and energetic; my mind also felt completely different: it felt "lighter" and positive. It is scary how the rollercoaster can dip and soar so radically.
In that same vein, for the past couple of days, I have felt really, really well - I have not felt this fine in months, to be honest. Were it not for sensing the presence of my hard lymph node under my right armpit, and for the bald head that stares back at me in the mirror, I would think myself to be perfectly healthy. Oh, the lymph node, the damn lymph node.... it is my daily worry, admittedly, as my family can attest. Dr. Plowman assured me that it can do me no harm while having chemo, that it cannot spread its cells, and I do believe him. But it just isn't shrinking as one would hope, and that bothers the hell out of me. I know that the plan is to remove it eventually, so why should I care what it does, if it can't hurt me? Because I want it to respond better to treatment, because I see it as part of the cancer as a whole, as my visible indicator of my recovery. I tell myself that I give it too much importance - I know I give it too much weight. The tumor in my bosom, in contrast, has shrunk so dramatically. And that is how this cancer plays with my mind: the bosom shrinks majorly, the lymph node does not... aren't they one and the same cancer? And with that contrast, how can one imagine what is happening in my liver and bones...? But I stay positive, and focus my energies on the fact that my body is strong. And, similarly, I choose to believe that my body is focusing on what it needs to work on most and best, and that it knows what it is doing. And I believe that it is doing a fabulous job in this battle. But, I admit, that as I go about my day, the little ball under my arm pit that is my sick lymph node provides me with unwanted, constant, niggling reminders that, even on the best of my "well" days, I must never, for a minute, stop fighting. And I will win this fight. I am winning this fight. I focus, I visualise, I hope, and I fight, fight, fight.
And talking about being positive, and as I said earlier, I have had several days of feeling particularly well, and therefore I was able to enjoy being outdoors in the sunny weather that has finally graced London. So, on the theme of Spring that has been part of the last few posts on this blog, I have attached some pictures of Spring in my neck of the woods - these were taken on my walks through Holland Park this past weekend. It is a lovely park that is just a few minutes from my home. Spring has finally sprung, and it was wonderful to breathe the fresh air, feel the sun on my face, and see life in its many beautiful forms. And my body felt good. It belonged in the midst of all of that "life". I hope to take many more walks and spend more time outdoors, before Round #7 next week. It is good for the soul.
Good night to all, and love as always.
Since my last post, I have had a series of mostly good days. Admittedly, despite a Round #6 which I believe to have won, the side effects still lingered for many days, coming in waves. It plays with your mind; one day you begin to feel better and think, "Great, the cloud is lifting, we're coming out of the tunnel", and the next you wake with nausea, aches and a general feeling of malaise and think, "I feel worse than yesterday...when will this ease up?" I guess that I still have not come to fully accept the ebb and flow, or the rollercoaster as I call it, that characterises this process and which reminds me, time and time again, that I should not predict, that I should not assume, that I should not expect. On Friday, for example, I took an unexpected nose dive. I got up feeling awful - mouth ulcers, nausea, deep fatigue, again that "unplugged" feeling, and very, very emotional. From one day to the next, boom! All day, I could not come out of it, and by the evening, I was not in good spirits. Chiara says that on those bad mid-cycle days, she can just tell the effects of chemo not only on my body, but on my personality - I am quiet, "absent", distant, closed, tearful... The next morning, my body felt completely different: it felt "normal" and energetic; my mind also felt completely different: it felt "lighter" and positive. It is scary how the rollercoaster can dip and soar so radically.
In that same vein, for the past couple of days, I have felt really, really well - I have not felt this fine in months, to be honest. Were it not for sensing the presence of my hard lymph node under my right armpit, and for the bald head that stares back at me in the mirror, I would think myself to be perfectly healthy. Oh, the lymph node, the damn lymph node.... it is my daily worry, admittedly, as my family can attest. Dr. Plowman assured me that it can do me no harm while having chemo, that it cannot spread its cells, and I do believe him. But it just isn't shrinking as one would hope, and that bothers the hell out of me. I know that the plan is to remove it eventually, so why should I care what it does, if it can't hurt me? Because I want it to respond better to treatment, because I see it as part of the cancer as a whole, as my visible indicator of my recovery. I tell myself that I give it too much importance - I know I give it too much weight. The tumor in my bosom, in contrast, has shrunk so dramatically. And that is how this cancer plays with my mind: the bosom shrinks majorly, the lymph node does not... aren't they one and the same cancer? And with that contrast, how can one imagine what is happening in my liver and bones...? But I stay positive, and focus my energies on the fact that my body is strong. And, similarly, I choose to believe that my body is focusing on what it needs to work on most and best, and that it knows what it is doing. And I believe that it is doing a fabulous job in this battle. But, I admit, that as I go about my day, the little ball under my arm pit that is my sick lymph node provides me with unwanted, constant, niggling reminders that, even on the best of my "well" days, I must never, for a minute, stop fighting. And I will win this fight. I am winning this fight. I focus, I visualise, I hope, and I fight, fight, fight.
And talking about being positive, and as I said earlier, I have had several days of feeling particularly well, and therefore I was able to enjoy being outdoors in the sunny weather that has finally graced London. So, on the theme of Spring that has been part of the last few posts on this blog, I have attached some pictures of Spring in my neck of the woods - these were taken on my walks through Holland Park this past weekend. It is a lovely park that is just a few minutes from my home. Spring has finally sprung, and it was wonderful to breathe the fresh air, feel the sun on my face, and see life in its many beautiful forms. And my body felt good. It belonged in the midst of all of that "life". I hope to take many more walks and spend more time outdoors, before Round #7 next week. It is good for the soul.
Good night to all, and love as always.
No comments:
Post a Comment