This Too Shall Pass

Well, it seems my body has finally lodged a formal complaint about chemotherapy.

I saw the consultant earlier this week and, after everything that has been going on, they’ve decided that we’ve reached the point where enough is enough. The main chemotherapy is being stopped immediately and the plan is now to go straight to surgery to remove the tumour.

This wasn’t quite the road map we started out with, but apparently there comes a point when the medical team has to decide whether continuing with the treatment is likely to do more harm than good. And, as it turns out, my kidneys and heart have been getting rather battered and fed up with proceedings as well. 🫣

Ultimately, the chemo has caused far too many complications and I’ve become increasingly weak and exhausted. I’ve lost more than a stone in weight along the way – which, if I’m honest, is not entirely a bad thing, although this is certainly not the weight-loss programme I would have chosen! I’ve also lost all my hair – and, for reasons known only to chemotherapy, half my left eyebrow – so there has been no escaping the fact that I’m having cancer treatment.

And it hasn’t stopped there. My fingernails are now ridged and discoloured, I have mouth ulcers, and I seem to have acquired an impressive collection of bruises. Some are from the various injections and blood tests, but quite a few are simply the result of me bumping into things. Or falling over.

I’m also suffering from peripheral neuropathy, which means that I can’t always properly feel my feet. Add that to the fact that the treatment has affected my co-ordination, and I’ve become considerably more accident-prone than I ever was before. Apparently chemotherapy has decided that shrinking the tumour wasn’t enough of a challenge and would also like to see how many door frames and household objects I can bump into.

And then there’s chemo brain.

I forget words for perfectly ordinary things. I walk into a room and immediately have absolutely no idea what I was doing and why I’m there. I can start a sentence knowing exactly where it is going and then, somewhere around the middle, the destination has simply disappeared. Sometimes I can almost feel the word I’m looking for hovering just out of reach, but I just can’t quite grab it.

So, between the bald head, disappearing waistline, battered shins, bruised arms, rather alarming fingernails and increasingly unreliable brain, I’m looking increasingly like someone who has been through chemotherapy – because, of course, I have. Any glamorous side to cancer treatment continues to elude me.

More importantly, the consultant was very clear that they don’t want me to get so depleted that I’m no longer in a good enough condition to have the surgery. So, although I was given the impression that the final decision was partly mine – doctors are clever like that! – the feeling was very much that it was time to call a halt.

And, actually, I think I’m relieved.

In all honesty, the chemo has been horrendous. I have tried very hard to be stoic and brave about it, and to keep going with the original plan, so there is a tiny part of me that feels… “disappointed”, perhaps, that I haven’t managed to complete the whole course. Something like failing an exam I never wanted to sit in the first place. But I think that is probably just my brain being slightly ridiculous…

Because the important thing is that the chemo has done its job.

When I was diagnosed with breast cancer nearly four months ago, the tumour measured 30mm. At the beginning of this month it had shrunk to 17mm, which was very welcome news indeed.

So we’re not stopping because the treatment hasn’t worked. We’re stopping because it has worked sufficiently well to get us to the next stage – and because the priority now is to get me fit enough to have the thing removed.

And there’s another part of the treatment that will continue. The targeted therapy will carry on, specifically to try to deal with any pesky HER2-positive cells that may have escaped elsewhere and might otherwise cause problems further down the line. I’ve asked about the possibility of recurrence, because naturally that is something that lurks at the back of one’s mind, and the explanation was reassuring without making any impossible promises. The targeted treatment should help reduce the risk, but of course nobody can say that it will prevent recurrence completely.

So the plan now is surgery, while continuing with the targeted treatment.

I should hear from the surgery team within the next couple of weeks, and if all goes according to plan, I’m hoping that by the end of October this hateful little tumour will have been removed.

Which, frankly, would be rather nice.

I’m still almost on my knees with tiredness, but strangely I’m feeling pretty positive about the change of direction. There is something quite encouraging about knowing that we are moving on to the next stage rather than simply carrying on doing something that is making me increasingly unwell and unhappy.

Another particularly frustrating side-effect has been what chemotherapy has done to my taste buds. Food simply doesn’t taste right any more. Things I’ve always liked can suddenly taste absolutely disgusting, and there have been plenty of occasions when the only thing I can do is push food around my plate and hope it somehow counts as eating.

All in all, I’m rather looking forward to the chemotherapy toxins gradually leaving my system and, hopefully, discovering that food tastes like food again. There are quite a few things I’m looking forward to eating properly – which is perhaps another good reason to get stronger.

So, a message to the chemotherapy:

“Thank you for shrinking the tumour. However, your services are no longer required.”

And me? Well, I’m going to concentrate on eating well, getting as strong as I can, getting this thing out of me, and continuing to take things one step at a time.

Because, as I keep reminding myself…

This too shall pass.