Life trundles on as I live on the clifftop. March has been a wet and windy month and generally not great weather. We have had a couple of lovely days and I tried to get out for walks. In my last blog, I mentioned that my sister was having surgery and it was having an investigation to see if she had cancer, I am really pleased to report that her biopsy came back clear and that she is doing OK. So far I have heard nothing back from the CT scan I was due to have and mentioned in the last blog. They said I would be contacted in 2 weeks or so if there were signs of cancer and it is over that now which confirms my feeling that I didn’t have lung cancer.
After a busy month or so March has been less busy for me, which was good as it has been a month that has featured fatigue to a great extent, again. I wish I knew what triggered it and how I could work out how to avoid it more. Sometimes, I can see a connection between overdoing it and being fatigued but often there is no connection that I can make. I have been taking it easy for a week, doing moderate exercise, sleeping well and eating well and suddenly out of nowhere have a day or so of fatigue to varying depths. I was asked this morning in a Whatsapp message exchange if I get brain fog with my physical fatigue, the answer is sometimes but not always and that sometimes I feel physically fine but the brain fog makes doing anything a challenge. Then there are the fatigue days that I feel like I am beginning to go down with a bug or have an upset stomach, the next day I am normally fine so it is not an infection unless my body has developed superpowers and can cure me of an infection as I sleep overnight.
Moaning about the fatigue is something I try not to do because it is a side effect of the treatments that got rid of my cancer, so I feel fortunate to still be here to suffer it. However, at times it does get me down a bit and I find myself frustrated by it, especially if I have been careful not to overdo do things. For example this week, I did a bit of hoovering and because it was a dry day wanted to do some gardening but limited myself to doing half an hour of gentle pruning. The next day I felt physically drained and very fatigued, there have been other times when I have spent a couple of hours working in the garden, gone for a longish walk and felt fine the next day. This is what gets to me, it is really hard to predict what will trigger a bout of fatigue and what won’t. I remember going to see my GP when I went to work after the treatment because after 2 months the fatigue wasn’t going away, he did all the usual tests and found nothing, and suggested I speak with my consultant. I did and he thought it would pass in time, he and the dietician I was being seen by at the appointment, both thought I was making exceptionally good progress in my recovery from my treatment, so I left the appointment feeling hopeful that the fatigue would pass.
Looking back to then, I think that what allowed me to go on apparently OK to others, was the adrenaline and other stress hormones I was producing in vast quantities in reaction to the stress of cancer, the treatment, returning to work and feeling that it was too much for me. It got to a point where all I did was go to work and do a bit of exercise not forgetting some housework. Socialising was something I rarely had the energy for and within 6 months I was off sick again with fatigue and exhaustion. Then unfortunately doing some gentle cycling as agreed with my GP as part of the recovery plan I clipped a curb and ended up with a complex collarbone fracture. It was during the time I was off sick with this and waiting to see if it would heal without surgery that the opportunity for early retirement was taken up by me. And 7 months later just before I retired and a few weeks after I had gone back to work, I had a front tyre blow out and broke it again. Due to concerns about operating even closer to the radiation site and the damaged tissue my surgeon was reluctant to operate and it wasn’t until after Xmas that the surgery was done.
A fairly intense few years and I was sure that over the next months, I would see the fatigue diminish, and that the pain in my shoulder and neck from the treatments, breaks and surgeries would also fade. Neither has happened I am still in pain pretty much most of the time and take painkillers for this, the pain isn’t totally taken away but enough that I can carry on at my new normal pace of life. Sometimes the pain does get me down but most of the time I just get on with life and ignore it as much as I can. Driving is something that makes it worse, walking is another thing that does, due to the jarring of my shoulder as I walk. Cycling, cleaning, gardening etc also exacerbate the pain but are all things I have to do so I just do them and accept that like the fatigue the pain is something I have to accept and not let overly stop me from leading the life I want to lead. It isn’t really possible to separate the pain and fatigue and work out which affects me more. Sometimes I think the pain can make a bout of fatigue more likely, other times I think the pain can prevent me from doing too much and make fatigue less likely. Other times I think the fatigue can make the pain feel worse because I am less able to ignore it and do what I want to do.
I am wondering if people reading this entry so far might be thinking what a whinging blog entry this is and very negative. I don’t feel my life is bad, it could be better and do have additional challenges that many people my age don’t have. Yet against this, I survived a cancer that statistically I was very unlikely to do, I live in a lovely place and have a home I really like and can see the sea from my conservatory and the patio. So life in many ways is very good and I feel extremely fortunate to still be around to enjoy it. One of the good things this week was that it was the first anniversary of adopting the Petite Panthers and in a year they have changed from two frightened kittens into two confident cats and rule the house and will soon be reminding me that it is their dinner time.
10 years ago this weekend, my colleague who also had head and neck cancer went off to start his treatment, I had no idea that I would follow him 6 months later by going off sick to start my treatment. Unfortunately, he didn’t survive whilst I did, which brings home to me the randomness of treatment success, his cancer was less advanced than mine. I have long had a belief that whilst I sometimes seem to have more than my fair share of bad luck, it always seems to work out alright in the end and cancer was another one of those things that did. Maybe I didn’t come out of it unscathed, I am though still here and tormenting people foolish enough to read my blogs with my rambling words that may or may not make sense. During my treatment and the dark days as I recovered from it, I always tried to notice the good bits of my day, the unexpected flashes of goodness you can notice if you look out for them, maybe a smile from a passerby or shop worker, a glimpse of a lovely view. These things didn’t take away how ill I felt from my treatment, they did, however, make it easier to cope with them and I still do this to shake off the negatives of living with pain and fatigue. There is more good in my life than bad which makes me feel extremely fortunate. On that note, I will go and feed the teen cats before I get reminded I am late with their dinner before cooking my dinner.
paulbysea 