" I Have Cancer? " Part 6

" I Have Cancer ? " Part 6


It is now about week 6 and my Chemo therapy is about complete. My pain has increased to almost unbearable levels and after request for raising my medication went unanswered I began to think of ways to ease the pain on my own. This you will see was a big mistake and by not going along with the Dr's who are entrusted with your care led to problems for me. I am putting my bad decisions here also to reveal to you readers the wrong decisions that you can mistakenly make yourself if you have the misfortune to have to go through treatment. If it helps one person then I have accomplished what I set out to do by including this in my journal.

Before I go into that thought I want to hit on the pain thing. As I alluded to before the treatment went along and by now I had continued to lose more weight and refused to eat to the point of getting maybe one good hearty meal a week in me. The rest of the time I drank Ensure till it came out my ears. My throat hurt bad and I had lost any desire to eat. Sure I felt like eating but that desire to force myself by now was long gone. I would go to the refrigerator which was seldom; and look in, only to turn and just go back to bed. It was a strain to even get up to go to the bathroom also. I had become so weak that I was in danger of being forced to have the tube put in now. My weight had gone form 218 when I was diagnosed down to 164 pounds. I looked terrible and felt terrible and began to doubt that the treatment was going to work at all and I felt like quiting. My depression was very bad and coupled with a lack of interest from my family, I began to lose my will to live sad to say. There are things that I will say now that the ones who knew me going through this had never known that was going on in my head. I hope they forgive me also for not telling them.

I had by now quit going to meeting with the psychologist, and decided that the ones I loved did not care much and that if I were gone I would not be missed much. I felt like a burden on people and I hated to even look at myself in the mirror. My heart felt very sad inside over ones I loved so much and I wanted so bad to be there for me. I might add that this is a very bad place to be during treatment and depression can help you make some very bad choices that to you seem very rational at the time. I hope that by reading this, those of you who might be going through treatment will serve as a warning sign to you.

I also want to mention the ridiculousness of this all by admitting that I still despite all I saw around me, did not quit smoking yet. I know that sounds odd and even sad, but the truth of the matter is this. You smoke to relieve stress. Then you are faced with the most stressful thing in life to have to face. The tools you used to cope with stress, people now are telling you that you can't use. Given that and the fact that quiting smoking is compared to by Dr's as worse then trying to quit a heroin addiction, it was very hard on me. I wanted to quit but despite the fact that I had gotten it down to a few 3-4 a day, I still couldn't let go.

Finally with 3 weeks left to go through radiation treatment I gave them up. The ones caring for me tried so hard to get me to realize that even one cigarette will negate any radiation treatment and what I was doing was defeating everything. Sad to say even though I quit I now am fighting again to kick the habit even after the treatment has ended.

By now the pain was so bad and another month had gone by since my last visit to the pain management Dr. Over the course of that month I decided to add to my medication some other pain meds that I acquired from a friend. When it came time for my visit I had forgotten about it. Then when asked to give a urine sample I knew I was in deep trouble. In the beginning I had signed a paper agreeing to abide by the Dr's treatment and that any deviation from it meant I would be dismissed from their care. Another month went by and when I once again returned to the Dr, she had the urine sample report and asked me if I had taken anything else despite what she recommended. I had to admit it and the consequences were not what I had expected.

Thank you S A Gibbins