This was a week that I don’t think I could live again without screaming. I’m writing about it here because I’m hoping that if I lay it all out there, it will move me past it and we can go forward with peace and some optimism.
My first issue is that it was a very painful week for me. My whatever-it-is bladder issue is making it most difficult to walk. I go up and down the stairs either on my hands and knees or be repeating to myself, “I can do this, I can do this”. I am continually both confused and amazed that I am living with breast cancer and all the issues and pain that go with it but it is absolutely the secondary pain. The side effects of the drug I’m taking seem to me to be cumulative – they are worse now than they were when I first started taking it. The hot flashes come and go, often they seem to be related to how much energy I’m using at the moment, either physical or emotional energy. They wake me several times during the night so that I’m searching around in the middle of the night for my handheld fan as it does seem to help. The aches and pains in my joints, muscles and bones are ongoing but they move around so it isn’t the same place all the time. I am nauseous at least once a day but it doesn’t seem to be related to timing of my meals or what I eat. I still have a good appetite and I think that’s probably a good thing.
My daughter is going through a most difficult time. Many years ago, twenty-one to be exact, she had a life-changing automobile accident. She was the passenger and the only one hurt in the accident. We spent several years with many surgeries – surgeries that involved rebuilding her right arm, casts and treatments for the massive injuries to her leg, foot and back. It was terrifying, scary, exhausting and made for many changes in our lives. Since that time, she has gone back to school, obtained a job that makes her happy, got married, had two wonderful children, is now separated but living in a townhouse she owns and is in charge of her own life. In the last three or four years, she has had three foot surgeries and lives with constant pain in her one foot. Several months ago, she had an accident at work and has injured her arm and shoulder. This means she has no use of that arm (which has always been the good arm since the car accident) and is in dreadful pain. It has taken several months for doctors to find that she has completely torn a tendon in her shoulder or rotator cuff and is going to need major surgery.
Her and I are especially close and I have always believed that much of this is because of her original accident. I lived with her during her adjustment home after long hospital stays and we have depended on one another for so much. Well, right now, we can’t believe that the timing of our illnesses, ailments and treatments is affecting how we try to help one another with the tasks and activities that have become difficult as we go along.
My husband had just said to me a week ago that he was going to have to step up and help some more with the two of us. AND NOW? He got up one morning a week ago and his left foot was very swollen and purple all over. Not only were we concerned about his foot, he is diabetic, so it is doubly worrisome. We went to urgent care and learned that he has cellulitis. We don’t know how or why, but there it is. They gave him a prescription for antibiotics and off we went. After three days it was no better; no actually it was worse. Now it was more swollen, bright red and hot. Back we go to urgent care to find that he needs intravenous drugs. For the next three days, we are back to urgent care while the drugs drip in to fix it. After three days, he went back on the antibiotic pills, but the foot looks much worse again. He is now trying to arrange his life to accommodate seven more days of going in for intravenous drugs each day.
I know clearly that many people are going through things much more difficult and serious than we are at the moment. So I feel guilty with my long whine, but it seems like a lot at once. I feel guilty too that I am not doing the day-to-day things I think I should be doing, I’m not helping my daughter with all the things that she is not able to do and that my husband is going to work every day while he is trying to recover.
One day at a time, right? ……………………………………..
