Weeping Women

Chemotherapy is a cycle by its nature.  A large proportion of the drugs go into your system intravenously and work their way through your system.  There are the morning and evening Capecitabine tablets to take throughout the cycle (along with the other elements of the cocktail) but the bulk go in intraveniously at the beginnning of the cycle.

At the beginning of the cycle it hammers you and as you work your way through the cycle normality quickly returns in different degrees.  As things progress the things that you felt on the inside manifest on hte outside e.g. hair loss doesn't start immediately but it is here with a vengeance now.:-)

With the extra week to my first cycle to recover from low white cell counts I was looking in good shape before starting the second cycle.  The evening before going in for chemo I was out in the local streets and parks rollerblading with my daughter (Boogle bunny) and playing football in the garden with my son (The Huffty).

I knew what was coming the following day, but when you are looking from the outside it is a shock because you see someone in good physical shape one moment and then needing sleep, rest and suffering nausea the next.

I went to bed shortly after coming home from chemo on Wednesday and left kids who hadn't kissed their daddy goodnight and also found out the next day that I had also left a wife to weep downstairs.

My discovery was because I posed the direct question to Kitten yesterday of "Has it occured to you that I could die?"

Of course we have discussed all possibilities in the past but it is good to be so direct on the odd occasion to illicit an truthful respone and gauge the current feeling.

Kitten was honest in her appraisal and said that she had never really countenanced it before seeing me in chemotherapy on Wednesday when she felt that I had looked vulnerable for the first time.  She had spent Wednesday night weeping and more the following morning when invited in from  the playground for a chat at school.

Boogle bunny has also been suffering with the emotion of it recently and that is more difficult because she is of an age where she is old enough to understand the situation at some level, but still not fully conversant in expressing how she feels.

The whole point of this entry is to re-iterate what I have said before and that is that I am at the eye of the storm and it is easier for me to see what is going on with me and stay calm.  It is not always so easy for those around and close to you and they need support.

I try and give support as much as I can and explain as much as I can about the process and how I feel, but at the first couple of days of the chemo cycle require you to be inwardly focused and selfish because you have to get through it.  For me yesterday was difficult to get through because of he nausea, but I rested enough and was selfish enough to get through it without "wasting the drugs".

The women's tears may not have been welcomed by them but they were all part of the healing process, perhaps a few of them will have gently caressed my soul.

Following on from the post "Kitten Quips"......It's good to be loved.

I have added this line immediatly after finishing the blog because as soon as I published it (to the second) Radio 2 started playing an old song by Blue Oyster Cult called "Don't Fear the Reaper".

Clearly, I am back on the money today :-)