Journal entry: September 2012.

 

Journal

I am home now for recovery. The pain feels like fire and every move I make feels like cats claws cutting at my flesh.

Sleep and rest…

Journal entry: ‘Vulnerable – I feel a pain stabbing – I can’t talk about it.’

Rest and sleep…

I am so grateful my community is bringing me meals. Everyday for two weeks friends and family are bringing us an evening meal. Their support is so welcome.

Sleep and rest

My drains.

 

The wound – Tubes/drains are inserted into the wound area to catche body fluid that drains from an internal pocket called the seroma; it weeps from the wound. Seroma definition (A seroma is a pocket of clear serous fluid that sometimes develops in the body after surgery. This fluid is composed of blood plasma that has seeped out of ruptured small blood vessels and the inflammatory fluid produced by injured and dying cells. Wikipedia).

I had to change these bags of fluid regularly. It is quite a challenge to face up to if you are squeamish.

 

Sleep and rest

They say 4 – 6 weeks recovery time. I am glad someone cautioned me that in reality it takes a body much longer to recuperate to normality.

I can’t hug people yet!

 

Journal entry September 2012

When people ask me: how are you doing emotionally? Is your body grieving for its loss? Are you going for counselling? This ‘victim’ is too sensitive to answer; I just feel that it is too personal to ask me that.

 

Addressed to my psychologist:

Dear Michael

Reporter like I come to you

I give you details mixed with philosophy

And with a knife you cut through the bull-shit

But I don’t know where the fear is

You are looking for.

 

What I do know is…

I never bargained for

The details of the pain,

The thrush, constipation, infection, tedious boredom,

….

Never bargained for the details

And I want it to be over!

Waiting patiently is not my strong suit

Living in the moment of

‘Un-bargained-for-details’

Is an acquired taste,

The more I wish to make haste

The slower I go.

 

No, there is no fear

In the mundane of living,

Just the battle to cut a potato;

To reach the coffee; do the chores

The battle to balance the energy stores

Everything takes three times longer

While I walk three times slower.

So not much gets done.

 

Reporter-like I come to you

My skin is growing nerves

As the prickle-ripples tingling

Through chest and arms,

Like putting on a garment

of new skin so sensitive

Feelings magnified

So that every little touch

like sandpaper and wood

Scours my nerves from the inside…

And as the discomfort of my skin and tendons awakens

so does my emotional discomfort come to the fore,

I am still disconnected from my mind

So there are no explanations yet

just a vast aquifer filled with tears.

Tears not fears…

of frustration of wanting to be better,

of not being fixed yet;

tiredness of being sent from pillar to post

from one expert to the next,

one never ending examination.

I want it to be over.

I am sad that this is me,

this is it;

sadness in letting go and letting be;

of not having breasts,

of not feeling normal again,

of KNOWING THAT MY

JOURNEY IS SO MORTAL.

This too is a pain.

I will see the oncologist on the 2st October.

***

And so this too is a journey that is to be continued next week.
Remember your body belongs to this world but your Spirit will move on at it’s appointed time, no sooner, no later.

Cheers

 

If you want to read the sequence of events from the beginning you can find them here:

First Discovering I had cancer.

Second Cancer continued: meeting my surgeon

third The question was: One or two breasts.

ForthFacing my fear of surgery, 4th September 2012

Fifth I am on fire: breast surgery recovery.

Sixth why me, Cancer, why me?

Seventh Breast reconstruction.