Comparing this experience with my first, I should be saying this first round has been a doddle. Look at me standing still and, apart from a slight stoop, I look no different: hair glossy and not falling out, skin not affected apart from layers of my lower lip vanishing daily so it’s a bit sore. The main problem, apart from the swollen lips and lisp, remains the sheer number of bits of tablets I have to take (which, if I let my mind head that way, feels overwhelming) and increasing exhaustion, hence the slight stoop. Breathing feels a bit laboured and I ache with weakness. Only 8 more doses to go, I can do it.
I daren’t even think about next month. Monday, I was ready to just ring the breast care team and say I couldn’t manage it any more. I’ve stopped using the lorazepam with the morning dose (good, I don’t want it to stop being effective) and today I’ve even stopped the morning cyclizine to see if there’s any nausea. It is as I expected - all in my mind.
So Monday was almost-breaking point, with a mild panic attack that night. One of the pieces with a sharp edge had scratched my throat. Tuesday I came to my senses - then I took my night time lansoprazole (which is a largish capsule) and it wedged itself across my throat. I tried coughing. Nothing. I tried drinking water. Nothing. I tried bending over and coughing. Nothing. I tried a DIY Heimlich Manoeuvre. Nothing. By this time I was retching like nobody’s business and I haven’t retched since Guide camp when I was 14, the very start of my lifelong phobia. 56 years retch-free! I just resigned myself to the fact that I was going to have to be sick to shift it (too risky to let it dissolve and slip into my windpipe). Me??? Be sick??? I felt like suddenly I’d grown up. Survival came before sickness. I always thought nothing would. Anyway. The fates were kind and the next retch brought it back out, A minute or so more and it would have dissolved so maybe I could have swallowed it but I think it was wedged across my epiglottis so maybe it was for the best that I rescued myself.
And Dennis slept through the whole thing.
So now I’ve moved the routine earlier - 8.30 food; 9.00 tablets, I refuse to choke to death and my husband sleep through!
And I’m still as phobic as ever about being sick.
Meanwhile, I have the Oculaplastics Department of Ophthalmology sending me an appointment. No way am I going anywhere near that place when I’m immunocompromised - they can wait. I’ve had a letter from Gynaecology explaining why they aren’t going to follow the CT scan up AND another letter from Gynaecology giving me an appointment over the phone. Can they do ultrasound remotely? Are we moving to self diagnosis? Do the words arse and elbow come to mind?
Bear with me. I can’t tell you how tired I am and I’ve 8 more doses to go...
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