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Friday 17 May 2013

Keeping my lid on...

Thursdays are good days.  I spent a wonderful, happy day yesterday with G, buying a prom dress and then going into Cambridge to have lunch with E, followed by stocking up on essentials (8 Hour cream) and buying myself a pair of Vans - quite the most comfortable shoes ever.

Fridays are my mouldiest day.  The high of Wednesday's massive steroid injection has completely worn off and the chemo is going full tilt as it crunches through the cancer. 

The hives are back - hence the 8 Hour cream - so I am on anti histamines and am up to 7 litres of water a day, to keep them at bay.  The weather is less humid, so I am more comfortable than a couple of days ago and I am so covered in moisturiser (Dr Organic Aloe Vera - thanks Mel - and 8 Hour cream) that it was quite difficult to get my knickers to stay up this morning!  

Sadly, the return of the hives means that my tolerance to water, carefully built up in 30 second weekly increments over the past 18 months, has disappeared.  I am no longer able to enjoy a nice warm shower.  I had even built myself up to having a 5 minute warm bath, which was heaven after 18 months of not being able to, but that too is now impossible.  Back to strip washing at the sink, just like I did at boarding school and smothering myself in deodorant.

The pain is back on Fridays.  It is a good pain, which is a weird thing to say.  I like to think of it as the pain brought about as the chemo fights the cancer and is winning.  At times, it feels like the hundred years war or melting a iceberg with a match.  It grinds and creaks with the occasional debilitating, head ringing sharpness that takes the breath away, when I move in a unaccustomed way.  As I have been pretty crippled by a "bad shoulder" for six months now, there are a lot of "unaccustomed ways" - like reaching out for a glass of water in the middle of the night - so the reminder that I have cancer is there, even when half asleep.

Friday is a day that depression tends to come in waves.  There is much to do, but my energy is low and my sensitivity button is on Defcon 5.  That means that the family creep around, as the residual aggression from the steroids still lingers, without the corresponding energy and enthusiasm.

Fridays are the days when I am best left to fester, spreading my greenish powder over the strawberry jam of life.

1 comment:

  1. may F friday melt away into a better Saturday.

    ReplyDelete