I went dinner and a movie with a friend last night and barely walked out of the theater on my own accord. I knew I shouldn’t have gone because my lower legs had started cramping that morning (just like when you run without warming up) but then it seemed to go away until the evening and I was hell bent on doing something “normal”. I kept having to get up during dinner to shake out my legs and at one point went to check if they were swollen; but they looked perfectly normal? By the time I got home at 11:30pm I could barely walk up the stairs to a hot salt bath; which didn’t do much.
I also started having other “problems” yesterday that I can only assume are side effects. I woke up in the morning with a sore swollen “feeling” neck and right arm, but I assumed it was from my Lupron shot administered the night before. But then the ache started to spread down my whole body throughout the day and by the end of the movie I was joking that even my cheeks hurt to smile.
Today everything feels bruised and swollen, as if I have been beaten by a bat, or taken a tumble down a ski hill – even my earlobes are sensitive to the touch. I have never quite felt an entire body pain like this. It’s unbelievable, and I keep trying to laugh about it, but that hurts too.
Combined with the persistent heartburn and night sweats I didn’t sleep a wink last night. I only dragged myself out of bed, and I mean dragged, because I had a client meeting this afternoon and I need the money. Everyone was so worried about the state I was in there was a family planning meeting about how much pain killers I could take and at what time that would ensure a window in which I could be coherent yet still physically able to walk and drive to my meeting. We also had a back up plan incase I couldn’t drive myself back home.
The last few days have been a reminder never to judge a person from the outside, because you never know what’s going on on the inside, under their clothes and in their minds. I know the lengths I’ve gone to struggle through an evening out because I wanted to be doing something normal. Or to find a work outfit that hides my permacath, a dressy hat that hides my thinning hair, to use every ounce of my energy to concentrate through my morphine mind, and plaster a smile on although it hurts my face.
Sometimes I think I shouldn’t do it. I should let people see the struggles so that they can truly start to understand what living with cancer and treatment can be like. But then I could never take it back and have just a normal dinner and a movie night out.
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