Just keep swimming... just keep swimming .....

  Well I'm day 6 post chemo. 2 of this new drug down, 2 to go. I remember when my oncologist said to me, "this will be completely different from your previous treatments" I thought, yep, I got this. Definitely can handle a bit of pain over nausea..... yep. no drama... sigh.... When will I learn. Thankfully after last month's faceplant on the bathroom floor, trying to make sure I had undies appropriately placed by the time the ambos got there, we were better prepared, and we discussed different pain relief measures to prevent a repeat performance. And we managed to avoid all that. I even got a little smug and thought, hmmm this pain isn't quite as bad as last time.... then Sunday night hit. Suffice to say that me and my high horse about taking certain strong painkillers got a reminder that sometimes its just whatever gets you through. I kicked that soapbox to the kerb.

I still do not like these heavy duty drugs at all. I fail to see exactly what the druggies get out of them. I do not like feeling left of centre, hung over and just plain weird (though some will debate that I have probably been a bit left of centre and weird a few times in my life.) Jokes aside, constant bone and muscle pain is... well a pain. It's tiring, it's debilitating and frustrating that I can't do the simplest of things. Try popping a little tablet out of a blister pack when the tips of your fingers just throb and have no strength. I literally push my nail into the foil (which hurts like a bitch because my nails ache like I've had the cruelest and roughest manicure known to man) and try and cut a circle so that the panadol hopefully falls out. Or I have to ask Rick to do it for me.

I'm tired of being tired. Chemo is on Wednesdays, and I literally sleep part of Thursday and all day Friday and Saturday. I'm frustrated because every time I get up (which usually takes several goes) Rick feels he has to watch and check I'm okay and that I'm not going to end up on the floor. I'm tired of being so weak after a shower, that I can't finish drying myself and again, Rick dries me and dresses me. I then spend the next half hour sitting on the couch because I'm stuffed. I can't take a deep breath without feeling as though I've just run a marathon. It takes a week before I can walk from our house to our veggie garden, a mere 50 metres, and when I get there, I have to sit, catch my breath and then make my way back. It takes me so long each time, to get any level of fitness back. By the time I get so I can vacuum the floor of our little cottage, or walk to the mail box and back, or go shopping with Rick (because I still don't completely trust him to buy exactly what I want) it's time to do it all again.

And while I only have two more chemo treatments to go........ I still have two more chemo treatments to go.

And then I remind myself, I am winning this battle. There is no choice.  I'll just keep swimming.