Cancer Day 37: Lesson Learned

Some days I have so much gratitude, so much happiness at watching my girl grow that I end up just crying off and on all day. Evie wouldn’t settle for her afternoon nap so I held her whilst she slept. And I was browsing my phone….and yes I was reading. Reading stuff I shouldn’t have been reading. Now let me just say that I’ve learned a lot of useful tips in my past reading. Special toothpastes and mouthwashes, diet tips, what to wear etc. all things to make my journey into the unknown more comfortable and as symptom-free as possible. What I didn’t realise was that I’d run into someone just like me. Someone so brutally honest and forthcoming that reading each simple word was making me cry harder and harder.
It’s easy to just vent and let things out. I try to take a balanced view on things and temper my bouts of scared/sad with knowing that my choice in chemo is the right choice.

But the blog I read today terrified me.

This woman listed out all her symptoms and she even said that she heard a nurse call the drug she was on, the same one I’ll be on…..the ‘Red Death’. Red because it’s blood red when they inject it into your drip and it burns for days after and that you’ll wish you were dead.

So yeah….my afternoon didn’t go so well. I kept trying to push it to the back, to remember that I am not her, that I can have no symptoms, that everyone is different. But I keep coming back to what I’ve always known. I am sensitive and I just feel more. And I’m scared I’ll feel so much and I just won’t be able to handle it. And yes, I know I’m also dramatic, but this woman wasn’t being any of those things. She was being factual, giving an account of her experience. I realised I don’t want to upset any of you. I don’t want you to experience what I just did. I hadn’t expected to find something so raw, and I know that what I say here will be just that. I will simply be sharing my experience but I don’t want to hurt anyone. So please, bow out now if you need to, or skip the bits that you have to. Just know that I won’t blame you. Because I wish I could skip it all too. xx

And yes, I promise I won’t be reading anything else. Lesson learned.

Feeling: Terrible