Dear Cancer,
Well, it has been a few months since we were last in correspondence and given this past week’s events I thought it was an opportune moment to put pen to paper again.
I don’t mean to be rude but you didn’t bloody keep your side of the bargain did you?! I asked you really politely to let the chemotherapy subdue you and help me to feel less pain. All you had to do was in essence lose a little weight and go to sleep. Then we could have continued our symbiosis for a good while longer. But you didn’t want to play did you? No doubt for your own dubious reasons.
Scrolling through the CT pictures detailing every nook and cranny of the inside of my body on Tuesday left me feeling deflated to say the least. Perhaps more accurately an overwhelming feeling of “what was the point of all that suffering?” You were almost laughing back at me. I didn’t want to see any lymphadenopathy, but no, my pelvis was full of it. I wanted to see smaller pelvic masses, but no there they were, chunky as ever. At least you had let the disease in my left upper quadrant gently melt away as I am really not ready to have to endure a bowel obstruction quite yet.
I’m now trying my absolute hardest to stop regretting choosing to poison you again. I made the best choice for Chris and me at a time when I was stuck between a rock and a hard place. There were no easy answers or solutions. How does one choose between probable rapid death or a toxic treatment in the full knowledge of how horrible the experience of undergoing that treatment will be? And I know I can’t rewind and repeat the last few months. I guess I’m just being greedy and had hoped for more. I hoped the chemotherapy would help me more than it has. I hoped I would be opioid free by now but remain as dependent on the hardcore drugs as ever. I hoped I would be closer to being able to work again but every day I wonder if that goal is slipping further and further from reality.
So I’ve definitely taken one step closer to the end. Second line treatment complete. Third line treatment options massively limited. A battered body struggling with fatigue, pain and riddled with infections that may or may not resolve. Being positive though, through tear filled eyes there are also some exciting things I really want to live for on the horizon. I’m not going to let you stop me achieving those goals. I wouldn’t give you the satisfaction. After June though I think it may be time to hang up my stethoscope and let you do to me what I wanted the chemotherapy to do to you. My internal desire to keep on keeping on is slowly but surely ebbing away the more suffering I accumulate. Who knows what your plans are for my demise, but please be gentle and consider how much I’ve already been through…
I would like to finish by reminding you when I die so do you and then where will you be?
Best wishes,
K
drkategranger 