Cancer is harder than I ever knew. Harder physically and way harder mentally.
The physical side effects of treatment are tough - as I was typing this just now my hands started itching badly from the chemo rash that is on each one. So I stopped, walked upstairs and put on more of the greasy ointment to try and get the itching to stop. It doesn't seem to be working too well at the moment.
Then there's the all over achiness I feel almost every day. Its like I'm getting sick - just a general unwell feeling that I've had for the last eight weeks of chemo. Sometimes the achiness gets so bad the pain medicine doesn't even touch it, then I hurt a lot. It makes me think of Job - how long did he have to sit aching and hurting from his boils? It must have felt like forever, too.
Food just doesn't taste right anymore. The chemo is giving everything a
funny taste. I have to keep asking my family if whatever we're eating
tastes ok to them. So far they've always said yes, so it's just me. Not
that it's helping me lose weight, if anything, I seem to be gaining. But
that could be the steroids I'm given every week before the chemo to
help keep from having a reaction. They told me I might gain weight from it.
Thinking about the future is tough. I'm not looking forward to any more treatments even though I want to be cancer free. The next set of chemo scares me, I'm dreading the pain of surgery and hoping it won't affect the use of my arm. Radiation doesn't sound like fun nor do the drugs I'm supposed to be on after all the rest is over.
I'm tired all the time and combined with the hurting it makes it hard to be strong. I'd like to go out and eat with my husband again, or see a movie or even go grocery shopping! I feel like I'm sitting in this house just watching life pass by.
My son had his 20th birthday last Friday. I started wondering if this will be the last birthday that I'm here with him. I wish I could have made it special - like we always try to do - but I don't have the strength, energy, time or money to do anything more than say happy birthday. And Bryan is run ragged trying to do both Mom and Dad's jobs while working full time.
Yeah, cancer is harder than I ever knew. Harder to take up the slack for someone who is no longer able to do for themselves, harder on the loved ones who have to watch them suffer and harder on the patient than I ever thought! The dread, the worry, the pain...I had no idea what cancer patients went through. If nothing else, I definitely have more sympathy for anyone who has been diagnosed with cancer. It is life altering!
At least they keep me laughing!
It is not just hard and life altering. It is a nightmare. Chemo is so hard, and steroids are downright evil, and thinking of leaving your children behind is about the worst heartbreak a mother can feel.
ReplyDeletePlease don't think of all the chemo and treatments and sickness ahead! You just need to be willing to take with Thanksgiving what God allows for you today. Only today. That is all He asks!
I prayed for you to at least get some peaceful sleep. Will be praying for you today. I will pray that God sends grace and relief when needed--when it just gets too much (He will, you know!) I'm so sorry it is so difficult. God loves you, and your children. He's got it all figured out.
And if you make it through this--the chemo and the treatments--that moment when you get the news that you are cancer free--you've never lived until you hear that! It could happen for you.
But if not--Jesus already bought your life. Let Him do with it as He wills. Worrying about it, resisting--will only make you feel so much worse!
I know you know that. That was just my pep talk!
God be with you today. Just give Him today. Can you drink this bitter cup just today?
Many prayers,
Camilla
Nightmare - as usual your words are spot on. That's exactly what cancer is - a nightmare! I am learning to live life in the moment as that's all any of us actually have anyway.
DeleteThanks for the prayers - the pain, mentally and physically, have gotten better. I pray you are doing better as well. God bless you!
Chris
And yes, I love when God sends us that grace through our children--through their health, and joy, and goofiness, and childlike fun, and obedience, and helpfulness!
ReplyDeleteI am doing better. The illness I am just coming through now was of a different nature--although it was certainly another trip through that valley of the shadow of death. Here is the quick backstory: My nightmare trip through the world of chemo, steroids, surgery (with horrible complications that put me in ICU), and a grand total of 34 transfusions (okay--I actually lost track)--it ended in December 2010. But it was an interesting 10 months of learning all that God is and all that I am not (I had thought I was so much).
DeleteBut there has been fallout since--a severe illness (as a result of the surgery) and hospitalization in July 2011 (when 7 months pregnant), with complications for several months afterwards, and then this past June 20, I contracted meningitis and had my 3-week hospital stay. The doctors say it is a miracle I am alive (I heard that about 30 times)--it is the worst case they had ever seen (in the biggest hospital in Columbus, OH). I had pneumonia, also. Five days in neurology ICU, and then another 15 in the brain and stroke unit where I was told many times I was the sickest patient on their 72-bed floor--most of whom were over age 75. I also had a "renegade" ankle joint, fallout from the infection, and to save it, they operated on it--cut it open to the bone on both sides, rinsed it out, drained it, and stitched it back up from the inside out. They saved it, but I am just now beginning to walk a little on it.
My hair began growing back in February 2011. It was funny to have the same "crew cut" as my then 17yo for a short time--I looked like a fatter version of him! It is JUST NOW past chin length! 18 months! It's like a watched pot! I've never seen anything grow so slowly! I tried to learn the lesson about vanity--but I never lost my vanity and pride over my appearance. The steroid moon-face, humped neck, and weight gain, in addition to the hair loss--I never was able to accept that. God's going to have to flunk me on that and have me repeat the lesson somehow.
The good news is with all that--having walked through that valley, I know I could walk it again, if God chooses. I have given Him permission to do whatever He wants with, whatever He MUST do to conform me to the image of His son! Whatever He must do to make me love Him above all things, desire Him above all things, and have faith unwavering every second of every day. And I pray He does the same for my children, too.
So---I'm probably in for it.
Hard prayers--but I'm so grateful for Him teaching me that He is everything, and I am nothing. Life here on earth is nothing--it is not even my home. This physical body--already condemned to death. Why should I place any value on it at all? Would I even be able to teach my children this unless He had brought me through that trial? What a blessing that they may learn more to live for Him because of what He has allowed for me! He is only good!
I have been learning to be DEAD every day--so when it is time to die, I've already done it.
I sat by my poor aunt's bedside for hours and hours last year as she lost her battle with breast cancer--which had taken over every part of her body, pretty much. She loved Jesus so much, but she could not ever wrap her head around what He was doing with this illness in her life. She kept struggling to live so she could please Him. At one point she wailed to me, "What am I supposed to do? Just give up and die?" I told her, "Yes, Auntie. You should have done that years ago."
Will continue in prayers for you!
I have to say that is really hard, I can see why your Aunt struggled with it - as do I. Dying daily is what we're told - take up our cross...It's the hardest thing to do but it sounds like you've got it down.
DeleteI'm still working on it. I'm still scared, even though I know 'God's got this.'
Thanks for sharing your story with me, Camilla!
I am praying for you continually. You are walking through the hardest spot--but you will get through, one way or another, because you belong to Jesus and He is holding you in the palm of His hand. You will either get through this here on earth, and then be invincible and impervious to trials such as these because of how your faith has grown (just like Paul! And you will be such a testimony to others in their trials of illness, too!), or you will get through this right into His actual arms. One step at a time, one minute at a time, trust that your Shepherd is leading you perfectly every minute! Because He is!
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