Tuesday, 19 September 2023
Nothing, no advice, no well-meaning comments, no research can prepare you for some things. When I had a blood cancer in 2018, the ‘cure’ was not an invasive intervention. Well, it was, but small scale. I thought a cruelty of MS, the cruelest thing, was robbing me of the fine-grained motor control to hold a pen, cut an onion.
Nah. Welcome to cancer top-trumps.
Or rather cancer cures.
One of my greatest pleasures (there is no need to add my usual wise-cracking ‘outside the bedroom’ here, with testosterone blockers in my system there is no need for a caveat) is reading in the early morning with a coffee. Any time between four and six. I’d get up, the world was still not a-stir, my small aspect of the world that is, I’m sure they’re up in Australia, put the kettle on, open my current book. Soon finished, onto the next one.
Not anymore.
Even today, where I got up before six for the first time in two and a half weeks, I still can’t read. My eyes follow the words on the page, but they don’t register anywhere. Not even after the third time of reading the same sentence.
Radiotherapy leaves you, one — me anyway — zonked. But not all the time. It comes in waves, it seems.
All of these bog posts (ha! bLog posts) were written in the early morning of the next day (I think all, certainly most) and so far this month, nothing. Nada. Zilch. The one I wrote dated the 5th was before therapy was due to commence that day, the one on the 15th was written in the afternoon as if it was the morning.
Having my bladder squeezed, although not the extent, and my bowels messed with, I’d anticipated. Being ‘tired’ too. But not zonked. Not staring at a line of words (in the morning, before that day’s zapping) with my eyes going over and over words but not reading anything. Waking up at six for a wee, noting unusual there, after ten hours sleep, ok a little unusual but happens now-and-then as a catch-up after a few too-early mornings, but then going back to sleep for another two hours? And then, after twelve, thirteen hours sleep, waking up, sitting on the side of the bed and being zombie-level brain-fogged? Staring into space, even though it’s dark? Feeling like you’re a computer that’s just had the power-on and is going through its start-up checks? MS brain-fog has nothing on this.
An then the wanting to say to a friend, I‘m zonked, give me a break, but knowing they ‘know’, in theory, I’m zonked but the fact that they don’t quite ‘get it’ isn’t their ‘fault’. It’s nobody’s fault. The world continues to turn. People still have their own lives to live. You’re own problems don’t amount to a hill o’ beans in this crazy world.
One of the things I didn’t want to do with this discourse was introduce any negativity. And funnily enough, despite the probably (possibly?) killing-level cancer, I don’t feel any negativity. Patient Transport Services (I’m on the dole and don’t have a car) creates a bunch of problems for me, but the drivers and shotguns are wonderful, and here’s the thing: I’m just grateful for the service. The frustrations of dealing with the big corporates, like energy suppliers, and the modern British business paradigm of coercive bullying, still goes on. Let it slide. Traffic jams making you late for your appointment, let it slide. Being zonked doesn’t seem to amplify life’s frustrations, if anything, it makes it easier to let them slide. Being zonked isn’t frustrating, it just is.
And here’s the thing, the other thing. Stumbling through questions for ‘The Chase’ woke me up, especially when the contestants beat The Beast to take home forty grand each (maybe you had to be there). Writing this seems to have woken me up (glancing at the clock on the cooker it’s now just passed seven am and almost light outside). Active things with my brain-use must be the way ahead. I couldn’t watch movies on Netflix yesterday evening but woke up to ‘The Chase’. Can’t read but woke up to writing — and thinking about —- a blog post. So active is the way ahead.
It’s just when you’re zonked it’s so difficult to start.
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