Well, it's been fairly quiet this year so far, I had a week of ibuprofen and eventually my ribs aren't really causing me any bother. I actually still have differences on my left side but have decided not to worry about it.
It's just about a year now since I was in hospital wondering if I was going to die! Weird. I saw my surgeon a couple of weeks ago again and we had quite a good chat. We went over what's been happening over the last 2 1/2 years including me being "very frightened and worried" after the reversal surgery didn't go to plan. "So was I, so was I" he reminded me. He was in every day to see me - including Saturdays (twice) and Sundays, trying to find out what was going on and why I was so ill. It was a grim 10 days. It was made so much worse by withdrawl from my drugs and losing my son - it's nearly a year since I last saw him and spoke to him.
I've done a fair bit decorating the front room now - waiting for Paul to put up new coving so I can replace the curtain rail (need to see where coving comes to before changing) and finish painting and there's the floor to fit (have another male friend who has kindly been bribed into helping with that - it's all bought and delivered) and then paper the ceiling and change the light fittings (also already bought).
It's looking a BIT more like MY home and not just a house I live in while I'm waiting to move somewhere else.
Taking pride of place is the secondhand cross trainer I bought off ebay for £25 because I am soooo fed up with this extra stone + I'm carrying around (and the lumpy belly thanks to weird scarring which is just odd). If I'd not had a few weeks off the gym because of the stupid rib pain it might have helped, but no point dwelling on "what ifs" - I've been rationing my calorie intake to between 1260 and 1500 calories a day plus exercise as much as my tiredness and work allows (and after Ben's LBT class on Tuesday pain levels). I've managed to lose 4 lbs in nearly two months which is actually not that bad I suppose.........but I've not lost any more in three weeks and it's really getting on my nerves! I just did another 20 mins on the cross trainer for the end of the Master Chef final - I find exercising stops me wanting to gorge myself stupid watching all that scrummy food on the TV!
I've been generally pretty down this last three months having lost ANOTHER friend (I have had three friends just drift away because I had cancer which just proves how much they really cared in the first place) and now my "best friend" who to be honest I'm not that upset about any more because she had spent the last year or two moaning at me about her troubles and then refusing to speak to me any time it looked like I'd met a bloke (and emailing me from the same office to tell me how jealous she was that I went on two dates with someone who I never even saw again anyway). I know I probably wasn't as supportive as she needed me to be - but I had the rib thing going on and she neither noticed nor gave me the opportunity to mention it - we just weren't there for each other any more. Bit like getting divorced really :o(
Still, I'm not going to allow myself to use being tired as an excuse for not seeing people this year - I'm going out tomorrow night and I've got a friend staying next weekend, then two weeks after that a 40th party weekend. I need to start putting friends names in my diary so I can make sure I see them - it's really easy to get out of the habit when you spend your life in and out of hospital (physio took up a fair bit of time last year too).
Also I should mention Karys did exceptionally well in her mock exams (exceptional because of me being ill for a huge chunk of her exam coursework years) and is set to get As and Bs and Cs and generally has done really well. I'm very proud of her.
Maybe I can actually turn things around this year?
Thursday, 26 February 2009
Monday, 2 February 2009
2009 February 2nd - Bone Scan Results - Clear!
Well, to cut a long story short, the bone scan was clear.
Funny, how three whole months of pain, worry and hiding my true fears and feelings from pretty much THE WORLD can be erased with the simple words "the bone scan was clear".
Over Christmas I came to terms with the fact that I've been married, had and lost children, got divorced. I've travelled, I've dabbled in things I shouldn't. I thought, yeah, I'm ready for it I don't think there's that much to look forward to any more, all the attempts at dragging myself out of clinical depression without drugs - I won't have to bother any more. If it's cancer in my bones I'll have that to take my mind off everything.
My son still refuses to have anything to do with me after almost a year and I can't help thinking my daughter won't really miss me either. It would be a right royal pain since she's nowhere else to live and I didn't really want to mess up her last year of school with a Stage 4 diagnosis.
Happy days.
New Year I was planning how I could get the whole house decorated before I was incapacitated again, so that I could get a decent price when I had to sell it.
I'd rewritten my will in my head.
Of course that's all academic now, because - the scan was clear.
The swelling is still there. What is it? The oncologist thinks I injured myself somehow and the cartilage at the end of the rib is inflamed. I'm taking ibuprofen for a week now to see if that makes it go away, or I can go back to see onco and they'll ask radiology about doing bigger x-rays or different scans.
I'm taking the NSAIDs - but I don't think I'll go back. If it was anything nasty I reckon it would have shown up on the chest x-ray, even if it's not in any bone.
So now I have to get on with life again, but it's a bit chuffing difficult when I don't know where to start? Every time I start again I get some kind of cancer scare, or some other crisis that knocks me off track and rekindles old traumas.
I just feel like there are so many others who deserve what I appear to have (remission for 19 months and counting) and I don't know what to do with it now I have it. I've spent over two years living and breathing cancer and now it's gone I don't know what to do, I don't feel like I have a purpose. I'm not really much of a mother any more, I enjoy being at work much more than I enjoy being at home. I'm hoping the inspiration for a "rest of my life plan" will arrive at some point very soon.
Funny, how three whole months of pain, worry and hiding my true fears and feelings from pretty much THE WORLD can be erased with the simple words "the bone scan was clear".
Over Christmas I came to terms with the fact that I've been married, had and lost children, got divorced. I've travelled, I've dabbled in things I shouldn't. I thought, yeah, I'm ready for it I don't think there's that much to look forward to any more, all the attempts at dragging myself out of clinical depression without drugs - I won't have to bother any more. If it's cancer in my bones I'll have that to take my mind off everything.
My son still refuses to have anything to do with me after almost a year and I can't help thinking my daughter won't really miss me either. It would be a right royal pain since she's nowhere else to live and I didn't really want to mess up her last year of school with a Stage 4 diagnosis.
Happy days.
New Year I was planning how I could get the whole house decorated before I was incapacitated again, so that I could get a decent price when I had to sell it.
I'd rewritten my will in my head.
Of course that's all academic now, because - the scan was clear.
The swelling is still there. What is it? The oncologist thinks I injured myself somehow and the cartilage at the end of the rib is inflamed. I'm taking ibuprofen for a week now to see if that makes it go away, or I can go back to see onco and they'll ask radiology about doing bigger x-rays or different scans.
I'm taking the NSAIDs - but I don't think I'll go back. If it was anything nasty I reckon it would have shown up on the chest x-ray, even if it's not in any bone.
So now I have to get on with life again, but it's a bit chuffing difficult when I don't know where to start? Every time I start again I get some kind of cancer scare, or some other crisis that knocks me off track and rekindles old traumas.
I just feel like there are so many others who deserve what I appear to have (remission for 19 months and counting) and I don't know what to do with it now I have it. I've spent over two years living and breathing cancer and now it's gone I don't know what to do, I don't feel like I have a purpose. I'm not really much of a mother any more, I enjoy being at work much more than I enjoy being at home. I'm hoping the inspiration for a "rest of my life plan" will arrive at some point very soon.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
