Feeling Crap
Having Cancer especially when it is labelled as Terminal is one big roller coaster of depression, I seem to spend a lot of down time so to speak when things are not perfect, far from it in fact, I can hit rock bottom instantly, especially when I am fighting pain, , I have been a little mobile for a change, so I thought that it would be a good thing to clean up the mess that is outside of the house, now I should have known better and just had a good time relaxing with the cats or fixing a few things but instead I decided to move a few flower pots (housing weeds), but of cause it should have known better, and three hours later I am still moving what I can, I even managed to do a bit of sweeping, now I am known for being stupid, and with the pain now hitting new levels I knew I should have swapped my already cramping legs for a new set, or at best got into a nice hot bath, but like I have already said, I am bloody stupid sometimes, my thinking here is that I am semi-mobile (still), and in a desperate need to at least give something back to Sue for all that she does for me, that said I am cramping up and already covered in earth from when I have been falling over, I am either drunk or terminally stupid, it was at this point that I made the fatal decision to drag out the Jet Washer and start to clean the driveway, it has not been done for about a year due to me being out of action, and it looks as though the drive has been totally crapped on by the peacocks, possibly the cats, the ruddy chickens and the sycamore trees that have a hate hate relationship with us here, so between pine needles, bird poop, and winter, rain, and more mud and more rain the drive was a tad messy, so stupid me thought that why I am still semi-mobile, and before the pain hits double figures I would try and clean what I can.
I lasted about two hours before I turned into a wet mud-covered creature from the mangrove Swamps above Laxey, I was soaked through and basically in enough pain to down an elephant, but most of the driveway was cleaned, but this put me so far out of action which was not unexpected.
Two hours later I could not support my own wait, I could not get out of the bath, and I was wishing that I had not been so active, it is weird when I can remember what I could do, many years back when doing a few hours work on the drive would not kill me.
The Next Morning
There was me hoping for a lay-in, but nope that would not happen, I was stupid for what I did yester day and now I had to pay for it, I cannot recall what woke me up, if it was the pain, my meds being pumped into me or the cats, all are painful, and most I hate. This morning was a little new to me, it was the level of pain that I had not felt for a few years and the level of pain that Tramadol would not even take the edge off the pain that I was feeling today. Not only have I set back any remote versions of getting better, but I even ended up shouting at Elaine and throwing my meds across the room, which I will regret later, we’ll all except the meds which I have had enough of now.
I have had enough of the pain, of feeling shit, of not being able to feel like I am human, I just feel like I am going through the motions and for no real reason, I hate that I am the way that I am, no one seems to know what I am going through and what I feel, and I am really pissed off with it all, I hate having the meds forced into me, it is out of my control and I always have to stop whatever I am doing to sit down and get the food stuff and the meds pushed into me, it is not just this that gets me down, the pain is always there and I just have to deal with it, since the last lot od radiotherapy I have had a serious loss of teeth, I basically do not have anything good left, the radiotherapy left most of my teeth to crumble and break up leaving what is left to be sharp, cutting my tongue up whenever it comes near to any of them, the rest have been left crumbling and rough, I never had bad teeth before Cancer, but it has become another pain I have to suffer, and the long list just has yet another item that I have to put up with. So, I did one good thing (yesterday) and end up with all the crap the next day.
Apparently I was downstairs, covered up, shivering, cold and trying to sleep after I was trying to feel normal but this was not working, not long after I was throwing up into a sick bag, as for the rest of the night, I cannot remember much, but it was obviously not a good night, but very normal to me.
The Next Next Day
I managed to crawl to the toilet and was soon dressed, this seems to be an easy way to get dressed these days, most of the morning has gone by, it is not far off 12:00am and I am sat in front of the computer typing this crap and feeling just as crap, my throat is raw, confirming that I spent most of the last night being sick and yet again aggravating my already shit throat. Just when the throat feels a little normal, I throw up which ends up with my stomach acid burning back to the state that is ‘more’ normal, red raw and bloody painful, even breathing hurts as the air passes through my throat, it is these days that I find it hard to stay with the program, I need feel useful around here, and when I do I end up regretting it for the next week.
Throat Cancer is far from fun, it means you are constantly in pain and constantly wishing that it would end, I have basically had enough, I cannot remember the amount of painkillers that I take but its about 7 or 8, and some of them are multiple times a day, and even though most of the pain is mellowed, as in I can still feel the pain but it is in a area that I can call semi comfortable, I know it is at a level that would normally have me sat in thew corner of a room, crying and wishing that I dead, but thanks to the drugs I can hide all that and spend most of the time pretending that I am not in pain and that I have a small amount of life that is worth living for.
But it is these fun times when I have been sick that none of the pain killers work, nothing can hide the rawness in my throat, and as I have come to know, drinking certainly does not help, I just have to wait for it to heal and that takes about a week, and during that time it really hurts. All this is caused by radiotherapy , Cheo just makes you sick, every time I have had radiotherapy it has ‘always’ taken a little bit more from me, first time it took my saliva glands meaning that I could not eat, soon after I lost all my taste buds, this may seem like something that is easy to live with, but it is totally far from it, food tastes the same, doesn’t matter if it is a curry or a soup, it all tastes like cardboard, and because of no saliva nothing goes down, it just sticks to the roof of my mouth and I cannot shift it to the back of my throat, and when I eventually do get to swallow it, it does not go down, it gets caught about a couple of inches down, I can feel it there and drinking does not shift it, usually I put up with it for about half and hour and I am able to cough it back up, but it rarely goes down. I keep wondering if I should have done through all this treatment, now knowing what the aftermath is like, I do not feel that what I am doing now is anything normal, and those around you just have to put up with it, it hurts them much more than it hurts me, I should have bowed out and refused the radiotherapy, at least I could have eaten food and enjoyed it for the next few months that I would have had and yes it would have hurt those around me, but by now I would have been a distant memory, or maybe even long forgotten.
Yes it is the times like this that make me feel low and you can only watch those around you getting hurt – is it really worth it?
Last Updated : 8th June 2025
