Touch of Cancer, Jean Charity [most inspirational books txt] 📗

or starting a job, getting distracted, and totally forgetting to go back to it. Again I absolutely refuse to acknowledge this is anything to do with age and will no doubt have quite a shock if I ever become drug-free and find it still happens. On the outside the years may take their toll but on the inside I intend to remain my (continental!) shoe-size!

FATIGUE

This I find the most debilitating of all the side-effects and on bad days even taking a bath or a shower seems to require enormous effort. On days like this I don’t feel like seeing or talking to anyone, and so I shut the world out until I feel better.
A normal day will find me resting on the sofa after lunch with my telephone pulled out and some soft music for company, when I will often fall asleep for an hour or two. When those sleepy eyes want to close, it is very, very hard to prevent them and in the early days I’ve been found literally head-down in my soup, or being helped out of a restaurant in what appeared to be, although I hasten to say was most definitely not, a drunken stupor.
Fatigue is part of my daily life now and whenever the need arises I will listen to my body and rest. After lunch is one of the worst times for tiredness and, if eating in the company of visitors, often I have to excuse myself soon after the meal. If questioned on this I inform them that I am getting tired, which has sometimes been countered with:’ so am I – I know how you feel’. But I don’t think they do know. This tiredness has a draining effect on the whole mind and body and is very different from normal tiredness. Not having the energy at this point to try and explain, I just escape as quickly as I can, leaving them wondering at my sudden rudeness.

IMMUNITY

Apart from the disease itself, the inevitable lowering of the immunity system, during treatment and afterwards, is possibly the only real potential danger. It is unavoidable, and catching a cold or infection can quickly lead to pneumonia with fatal results. I have known this happen to at least three people (two of whom were in remission at the
time when no doubt they thought they were ‘safe’ for the time being).The only answer is extreme caution. Whilst we cannot wrap ourselves in cotton-wool and must live life as normally as our condition allows, potentially risky situations should be given very careful consideration and avoided if at all possible. Large groups of people in confined spaces where bugs can generate and spread easily (such as on long flights) are potentially extremely hazardous. We must not forget, no matter how well we may feel at the time, that our systems have been weakened and we are still very susceptible.
If a cold or virus is picked up, on the past experience of others, I would urge you please, don’t just leave it, or take an aspirin and go to bed. Contact your specialist as soon as possible. I keep antibiotics already prescribed, for just such an emergency, and therefore would have immediate access to them should the need arise. I take nothing (neither salts nor herbal concoctions etc.) without prior approval, because many of the seemingly innocent products sold in health shops contain an ingredient which may not mix well with my current medication.
These precautions may seem extreme to some of you, but don’t forget what is at stake. Self-protection is very, very important and mention of this may be overlooked by the medics when they are concentrating so hard on resolving the main issue.

To conclude this section, thanks to modern science and the great inroads made by the medical profession there are now some wonderful drugs available, and new ones being introduced all the time. Whilst they may be very strong, and experimental in some cases, they are often our only life-line, and the inconvenience and problems they cause is really insignificant when compared to the chances they offer.
The possible adverse conditions are numerous and our advisers cannot possibly be expected to know how each individual will react. They cannot warn us exactly what to expect, and the reactions referred to above are the ones applicable to me. For those of you only recently diagnosed, please don’t assume you will experience the same, or that your body will react in a similar way; but I believe amongst mine are some of the most common, and hope that mention of them will bring reassurance, where necessary, that nothing abnormal or unusual is occurring.


5


HAIR





The fact that I was told I would lose all my hair didn’t concern me at all initially. I knew, given chance, it would always grow again, and of far more importance to me was my survival. Losing my hair was the least of my worries at that point in time.
I immediately had it cut very short so that the difference, ultimately, wouldn’t be so marked, and to begin with it came out very gently, accelerating rapidly into hands-full. When it got to the stage of only being a sparse covering on my head I visited my hairdresser to see if he could ‘spread it out’ a little for me. Ever the optimist! The gentle wash went well but as soon as he put the blow-dryer near my head there was a mass exodus of all remaining hair and, like a pause on a video, the whole salon gazed open-mouthed as my hair floated around and rained down on me. It was eerie. I returned home as fast as possible with head down in the deliberately misguided conception that if I couldn’t see anyone then they wouldn’t be able to see me, and ramming hat upon head shot to the wig shop where they shaved off the remaining stubble.
My philosophy being that if something is inevitable then one should try and turn it round to one’s own benefit, I set about getting some fun out of having to wear wigs, and ended up with a selection: long, short, straight, curly, black, red, blonde plus a couple of hair-pieces to wear once my hair began growing again. I am naturally fair, but unfortunately, even when wearing the black wig, I was immediately recognisable, and so my hopes of getting some amusing diversion out of mingling incognito with the locals and honing-in on their conversations, were dashed to the ground. (I have a somewhat ‘evil’ sense of humour.)
Body hair soon followed suit and when I got to the stage of not having one hair left. not even an eyebrow hair, the overall effect rather appealed to me – but on reflection it was a pretty drastic way to achieve depilation, and once it started to return I happily settled for the hirsute look after all.
It certainly didn’t mess about when it came, and a sudden thick downy covering all over my face resulted in my dashing off to see my Surgeon to tell him that I was turning into a hybrid. He told me I wasn’t, and it soon returned to normal along with nicking my under-arms with the razor again and myopically trying to peer into parts nature never intended us to shave anyway.
At first the hair on my head grew back very strong and curly; but since then I have lost it again, and the second time round it returned lank and straight. I had always wished for straight hair, but this was not nice, and the words ‘Be careful what you wish for’ were prevalent in my mind for sometime afterwards. It has been growing well since then and starting to curl again, but recently I have noticed it coming out and so fear I may yet be bald once more! Whilst it didn’t worry me first time round; and second time was expected; more or less a full head of hair – albeit slightly out of control – has given me back a lot of lost-confidence with which I am loathe to part, and I shall very definitely feel somewhat cheated this time. As I’ve lost weight in the face and neck, the wigs don’t seem to fit me as well as before and therefore have rather lost their appeal; so in the event it is not to be ‘third-time lucky’ I shall hope to reclaim a little of my lost dignity by swanning about mysteriously in cute little hats and other headgear.
After all, it’s not the end of the world, and – again – it really is a very small price to pay.


6


SEX





For some this will be no problem, but for others it will be quite an issue. I can only relate the anxieties I personally encountered and, being female, can only write from one point of view. The feminine insecurities which may arise from our condition are no doubt totally different from the concerns of our counterpart males, and despite years of endeavouring to understand what goes on in the male psyche I have finally given up and admitted defeat. I simply haven’t a clue. So, sorry gentlemen, but this is of necessity devoted entirely to the ladies amongst us –although if you wish to read it you may just begin to understand us a little better!
Whilst in the midst of my first chemo, I developed a sexual appetite beyond anything previously experienced, and my initial reaction to this was one of question and slight guilt. How could I fancy sex…I had cancer! It didn’t take me long to realise that I was merely sick – not inhuman or incapable, and there was no valid reason why I shouldn’t continue with as normal a life as possible. It was as though Mother Nature was telling me to grab life to the full, with both hands, whilst I still could.
Unable to have my man with me more than once or twice a month meant that in-between times I could take plenty of rest; slowly as the mood took me sort out a selection of clothes to put on one side to wear whenever he turned up; and to plan simple easy-to-prepare meals for him. But to begin with I still worried and fretted. What would he think of me now that I was certainly no longer the bright bubbly woman who had first attracted him? Would he want to abandon me for a healthy, more attractive substitute?
I soon became reassured on the above, but as time progressed and my physical condition deteriorated, other doubts crept in. The rapid muscle wastage, leaving loose skin on my arms, cellulite at the top of my legs and crinkly bottom, was not a pretty sight for anyone to behold, let alone someone special. My skin seemed to have lost its
sheen and there was a dryness to the touch. The shine had gone from my cheeks. I worried about how to look halfway decent with my total absence of hair, dark circled eyes and pallid, blotchy complexion. What if I were to have an embarrassing moment right in the middle of things – if my over-worked bladder leaked; if my laughter set off the diarrhoea; if gas decided it had had enough of being confined and wanted to join in the fun. How could I undress in front of him – and what if I fell asleep? Some of these concerns where sheer feminine vanity; but all posed problems for me and I could not imagine how anyone could desire me now. That is hard for any woman to