Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Who I am

One of the things I've discovered about being a cancer patient is that it becomes your identity: mcarp, cancer patient. When you're in chemo, chemo is the dominant factor in your life. Everything else revolves around it.

I mentioned in yesterday's post that I sometimes go for days without bathing. Part of the reason for this is that the mere act of taking a shower is so physically draining I have to sit or lie down for twenty minutes afterward. Anything that involves more than two or three minutes of activity is going to require a rest period afterward.

I've had a bit of normalcy during my three-week 'chemo vacation', but only a bit.

As I've mentioned before, I take chemo on alternating Mondays, with a portable pump that continues to drip 5FU into my system for 48 hours afterward. Then I remain sick with various side effects for days.

When I first started chemo, I got five 'good days' between my every-other-week fill-ups. Then it dropped to four days, then three. Now I have no good days. I remain nauseated the whole time. Sensitive to cold the whole time. Fatigued the whole time. Having intermittent tingling of the fingers and toes the whole time. (The tingling is the part that seems to most concern my oncologist; the chemo I'm receiving can cause permanent numbness and nerve damage in the extremities.)

I was pretty much a slob before I got sick. Now, I'm even worse. But I don't have the energy to be otherwise.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I wish I lived close enough to come over and tackle the house for you. Letting it get messy was really the only sensible choice for you to make, under the circumstances.

Lark

sam said...

its funny how different can these two title have different meanings. "who i am" & "who am i"