Living with cancer by David In Ireland (best books for 7th graders .TXT) 📕

don’t want to cry any more. It hurts me that I have not wanted to see any friends or family, I do want to see them, but I know what the conversation will be. I don’t want to talk about ‘c’. I know everyone is looking at me like I am the walking dead, but I am not the walking dead, I am alive!

Third session of chemoI spent most of the first day waiting to be hooked up to the chemo, but they took their time doing the things that need to be done, my hickman blocked up again needed a bit more work with blood thinners to get it working. But as the nurses are working on it I just keep saying to myself, this will flow, because if it does not they will want to take it out and put in another. When I have to go to a different department or ward, staff say 'oh your the one who has had three Hickmans, can I have a look'. So eventually blood flowed through my Hickman and I was ready for the chemo, then a nurse walked past me and said 'now, we just need to get a chest x-ray for you', ahhhhhhh, I was thinking 'this is going to drag on', but within a few minutes a nurses-aid took me to the x-ray department, where I was brought to the top of the que, x-rayed and sent back to the day ward. Within about an hour, I was told I had a hospital bed, chemotherapy was plugged into me and then I was off to my ward. This time I got a private room. I am not sure if I like private rooms. Each time I get a private room I think to myself 'ah now thats nice, I will have some privacy, my own wc/whb and shower' but the reality is that I will be on my own for the next 5 days other than the nurses who breeze in and out in an almost jogging run. My wife and two girls visit me each evening, but it is a long day waiting for that visit and when you are in a room on your own, the clock ticks a lots lower. There are obviously irritations within the public or semi private wards because you have to share stories, become a part of the ward, know each others names, but you can lean on each other, help each other, or call for a nurse for each other. The days of chemo are hard, really hard, much harder than the first two sessions, a lot more nausea, but it is still not as bad as I though it would be. It is not easy, but is it hard? Yes. The nausea is very real, it is eating me from the inside. I can feel every part of my body is being drained. I am draining away. I feel like a battery on its last few moments of strength. Walking is slow, my leg is a bit sore, but the movement brings on nausea. I have to go slow. I want to be sick most of the time, but I know I wont be. It is strange feeling so bad and being able to sit in a public area. My various trips to x-ray have me in a wheelchair with full chemo drip stand and pump.

I typed this on my phone over 2 days.

I am not feeling well.
I want to be sick, but I
know I won't be sick.
The time is so slow, I want to go
home, bring me home
I miss my home
my wife my girls
How long till they let me go home
2 more days
I can't imagine 2 more hours
Why can't I go home
I'll come back if I need to
This poison is eating me up
slowly, eating
It is consuming my every breath
it is shrinking things
my mind, my lungs, my heart
I feel like I am dying
I feel like I am almost dead
I think dead would be good
If there was a choice of dead
I would choose it
If it were a switch
I would flick it right now
Then regret it later
I have been doing
this for two days
I say two and not the number
because because I can't find the
numbers, where are the numbers.
Oh my head, its full
I need peace
help me please
I need help
please

(This took me 2 days to write, I was only able to type for a few minutes at a time, it gives you a slight insight into where my mind was for days.)

I know there are some that completely disagree with my decision to take the chemotherapy and radiotherapy, I understand how their mind is working and I can even see the logic to their ideas. Here is how I see it, I can stop a car from rolling from a stationary position on a slight hill, but once it gets moving I do not stand a chance. The cancer is like that, there may be ways of not getting cancer, but once it is there, you need to get rid of it and anything connected with it. I know what the chemo is doing to my body, I feel it everyday, I feel the life being drained, but I know there is a point where once I reach I shall come back, (in typical Six Million Dollar Man style) better,stronger, faster...... Ha ha.

I am home now for the next two weeks, a very welcome and needed break, I shall rest, get some fresh air, relax and enjoy my time at home with my family. I am feeling really bad. The movement is making me feel nausea. Walking is not on, all I can do is type for 10 minutes or watch TV for hours. I can’t even read a book, I have tried so many times to read but even my favourite authorsare not able to keep my concentration, this is backed up with car sickness feelings. I am eating well. Probably too well, but it is one thing that I missed a lot was the taste of good food. I am able to spend some time in the morning prepping vegetables, then in the afternoon I throw the ingredients together and put it in the oven. It looks like I did a lot of work but it is very easy. I am enjoying my evenings at home with my wife, watching our favourite programmes together. There is a peace that I feel at home. It makes me smile, its good to be home.

Fourth session ofchemo – final stage.... This is so hard. I feel so unwell. I know I will not besick, but the pit of my stomach is saying that I will. The only food I can eat is breakfast, brown bread and tea, lunch arrives and I run off the ward, the smell is making me gag. I feel horrible. I am so low, my energy is low, my smiles are low, low, I want to finish this, finish for good, I only have a few more days, then I am finished. I do not want to be here. Let me go home even for a day. I plan a trip home in my head, sneak out of the hospital, into awaiting car, drive home and be there for a few hours. But my battery pack won’t last long enough to get home, the chemo needs the battery to keep pumping it through. How can I get a better battery? So I begin a search for a higher volt battery in the store room on the oncology day ward. Everyone knows me by name and they let me wander around anywhere, so I find the batteries, but they are all the same voltage. Eventually I see a pump which is different to the others,the voltage is the same, but the battery pack is bigger, then I realise I need two pumps, I have two pumps that push through the two different bags of fluid.I find a second large pump, put the two pumps onto my drip stand and go find anurse to ask them to swop my pumps. The first nurse who passed me was more than willing to swop them over for me. So there I was all prepared to get out of the hospital, with my bigger battery packs on my pumps, when it went ‘bleep, bleep’and flashed ‘low battery’, so I needed to recharge them. I went out to the main hallway and found a chair near a power point and plugged in. As I sat there waiting for a full charge I started to feel unwell. All this planning and searching for pumps with a bigger battery had me exhausted, the exhaustion ledto nausea. So when I had enough battery charged I went back to the ward, lay on my bed and slept for hours. I was asleep so long that two patients moved out of the ward and two new ones were in place by the time I woke up.

After the final chemo. It has been a week since my final chemo session. I have not had the energy to type.

There have been days where I have not moved all day. I have been feeling pretty awful at some stages but always exhausted. No energy. But as the days pass there is a little energy appearing, so I know things are beginning to improve again. The big difference is that this time I do not have to go back into hospital after a two week session at home. I am finished chemotherapujf/////////////////////////////////////d D D D .. .. Oppps, .. .. I fell asleep, I am that tired, I cannot stay awake at the laptop for more than about 10 mins. .. .. I came home from hospital on the final infusion day, due to a change in my medication I was able to come home 12 hours early, and thanks to my sister (who gives me the neulasta injection) I get to come home an extra 12 hours, so that's one who day early! That is a lot when it is compared to being in hospital. Thanks Sis! .. .. The following morning my wife dropped me back to the hospital to have my hickman removed. It did not take too long and it was not too unpleasant. Again (my wonderful sister) came to my rescue and collected me from hospital and brought me home and gave me my injection. I find it strange that the staff here all know me by name, they all know things about me. I do not remember seeing most of them. I am told that this is fairly normal as I was on Rohypnol, which is known here as the ‘date-rape’ drug. I was apparently awake for the three procedures for the Hickman catheters. I remember going into the theatres but that is about it.

I was on a high for the first few days of getting home. I could not believe it was over, the chemo that is. I have been wishing for this moment for quite a while, when it arrived I was feeling pretty tired, but I was excited, I felt like I was going on holiday, it felt like Christmas Eve as a child. It was truly wonderful being home.

I will come back and finish this, but I am simply too tired.

Another week later. .. .. I am feeling so much better in the last few days. I have more energy, I dont fall asleep during the day. The nausia has finally reduced to a level that is easy enough to live with.