A lot of sickness & lots to do about health!

My September didn’t start with a bang, it started with a bout of sickness & fatigue.

Alt Text: A selfie pose of a white-skinned, middle-aged lady, sitting in her manual wheelchair.  She has long, curly, blond/grey hair.  She is wearing a black t-shirt & sunglasses which are perched on top of her head.  Her bag, with a leopard print strap, is slung over one shoulder.  She is smiling.  Her nose piercing glimmers in the sun.  Behind her is a park area.  Its grass has been worn away.  In the distance, there is a small cafe with tables & chairs, complete with white parasols, a row of large, brick & stone arches.  Lots of people are eating & drinking at the cafe.

At the beginning of this month, my health took another turn.  I had a lot of sickness, chronic pain and chronic fatigue.

At first, I thought that the sickness was related to work stress left over from my previous senior role.  Then I put the sickness down to a new coating on my tablets.  Then I threw up the anti-sickness tablet so I assumed that this was a new bout of Norovirus – the 4th time I’ve had it in the space of a few months.

My chronic fatigue started up again.  I’m literally exhausted; plodding through the day.  I spoke with our local Macmillan Cancer Navigator Service (which puts you in touch with Breast Cancer nurses).  A lovely Breast Cancer nurse came to the phone to reassure me – she said that it could be the effects of post-Radiotherapy treatment.  I remembered that I wasn’t tired at all when I finished my Radiotherapy, in fact, I painted our shed doors with help from my partner Stephane, so that’s how awake I was!  Now the post-Radiotherapy side effects were really kicking in.  Not great when I’m trying to be healthy & bring in work as a new Creative Freelancer.

I was so concerned about the fatigue that I requested a diabetes check from my GP & she ordered a set of routine bloods.  All the bloods came back to say that I was very healthy.  My GP phoned to congratulate me on how well I was doing!  To be fair, if I had got diabetes, it would have been my fault as I have put on weight.  Boy, weight gain is hard to control in menopause!

Last week my chronic joint pain started to ramp up.  I don’t need the weather spokesperson to tell me what the forecast is, I can feel the change in seasons through my joints!  

So, in what will be my busiest month since becoming a freelancer (hurrah!) it looks like it’ll be a month of health challenges.  It’s 5 years’ since I finished my partial Radiotherapy & I’m surprised at how much treatment side effects have got their hold on me.

The health challenges never really stop.  I read the instagram posts of my friends from the fashion show, & they often speak of the ongoing challenges with nausea, sickness & tiredness.

Health issues are a double, triple, quadruple, whatever whammy for me.  My underlying comorbidities (what a charming term that is!)  I’ve written a new chapter called ‘Explainers’ on my Blogsite – you can access it here – Explainers – The Musings of Spu  

‘Explainers’ provides background information about my impairments, the type of Breast Cancer that I was diagnosed with, how all my medications interact with one another & the unique ways in which I experience treatment side effects.  Of course, it’s important to note that I’m not qualified to give medical advice.  I’m not a medical practitioner.  If you have any in-depth questions or medical concerns, please consult your GP and / or healthcare team.  It’s also worth acknowledging that readers may find some of the detailed descriptions of impairments & treatment side effects upsetting.  That’s especially worth noting if you know me!

I’ve been rather brave in this section.  I usually wouldn’t put a name to my disability or any of my impairments & conditions.  I’ve found that it can encourage people to make all sorts of assumptions about me.  Every disabled person is unique, even if they have the same impairment & it’s important to remember that.  However, for the purposes of giving a bit more understanding of the complexities of treatment that I face, I wavered my confidentiality.

Sometimes I find it frustrating that my oncologist doesn’t really see the need to consult with my other medical teams – she says it’s because they treat many people with underlying conditions.  Whilst that might be so, my anesthetist thought it was vital that she consulted with my lung team at Brompton Hospital in order to medicate me carefully.  Both Breast Cancer surgeon & my Breast Cancer nurse welcomed input from my Spina Bifida consultant about the short & longer term side effects that treatment could have on my body..  This liaison became crucial when we were debating whether it would make a difference to the outcome if I was given chemotherapy (it was only 6% benefit & not worth risking my quality of life to have chemotherapy).

I’m left in the middle trying to think how best to heal myself.  I ate dry toast for about 3 – 4 days & drank lots of water.  This seems to have helped the sickness, alongside the anti-sickness pills when they work, but I still have nausea with a churning stomach (apologies to my partner who struggles to hear the tv over my rumbling!)  

With the tiredness, that’s just something that I need to ride out, but if I’m falling asleep on my sofa in the evening, I put myself to bed, otherwise if I sleep on the sofa & wake up a coule of hours later, I can’t sleep in my own bed.  I’m trying not to scroll on my mobile late at night, & this might be a cliche, but if I read a book, then it helps me to get off to sleep quicker.  I’m planning more rest hours where I just do nothing.  This is very, very hard for me as I’m a livewire.  But if I can’t work when I want & plan in rest periods as a freelancer, then why did I become one?!  

The pain, now that’s trickier to deal with.  Due to my Raynaud’s, I can take pain relief in the group of Aspirin, Ibuprofen etc.  There’s just a handful of opioids that I can use, & even that has to be with caution.  I’m allergic to Pregablin & Gabapentin – they both made me hallucinate & one side of my face was paralysed after taking just one tablet of each – I was terrified.  I’ve got to keep the weight down & get back into my gym & swimming sessions.  At least this will get me moving.  Word on the street is that my local gym has now fixed their lift (after months & months of waiting) so I should be able to return.  What I try & do is just take 1 or 2 painkillers per day, & put Arnica Salve (I’d better not name it because of advertising, but if you goggle it, it’ll come up) on all my joints in the evenings.  This seems to help me sleep better at night.  But there’s a certain amount of pain that will always be there.  All I’m hoping is that it remains manageable throughout the rest of my life.

Sickness.  Fatigue.  Pain…and repeat.  Hopefully for not much longer.