April to June

Here endeth the saga:

Ok, I’ve been avoiding writing about chemotherapy because, frankly, I didn’t like it. I didn’t particularly like surgery and recovering from it, but chemotherapy was just awful – especially the first time.

Well, so at the end of March, I went back to Ward 24 to see Dr Davis and Sister Bredin to find out the results from pathology about my tumour/cyst/teratoma. They said it was malignant, but that it was at an early stage just turning into the middle stage and that they were relieved that it hadn’t yet developed brain tissue. This is my favourite part of the whole saga – brain tissue in my teratoma. Beautiful! It is both fascinating and utterly disgusting at the same time. Anyway, Sister Bredin told me which drugs I would have for chemotherapy and said it would just be a day patient at Ward 4C at Gartnavel and I would have 4 treatments spread over 12 weeks. But when I finally met Dr Reed, I found it was not quite the case. Dr Reed said that I’d be going to the Beatson at the Western and be admitted 3-4 days at a time and then have to go to Ward 4C the two following Mondays to get a booster injection of Bleomycin. I was a little disappointed, but when he said that young women around my age "sail through chemotherapy", I was appeased.

So, as you know, chemotherapy started on 10 April and on the 8th, I had shaved my head. It was all ok until the Bleomycin was put in. Yuck! I had really weird diarrhoea. Not nice! And then I had that weird, horrible 24-hour stomach bug the weekend after that made me throw up what smelled like poo. Even better! And then, when I was in Ward 4C, I nearly passed out and threw up again before my injection. Chemotherapy just did not start off very well at all. The second treatment was fine. I don’t really remember much about it. It was the third one that was awful and I won’t talk about it because I’ve already written about it in great detail. I’m very thankful it was my last.

Well, I am amused that throughout my treatment I lived up to the name of Peer, as I filled many a shell of my urine, which they needed to measure to monitor my kidney function, as Cisplatin could have damaged my kidneys. As you may have gathered, my kidneys were absolutely fine. Also, I was amused that nothing at all was private in the ward (not even your bowel function), and once I’d lost my hair, a couple of old ladies mistook me for a man in the ladies’ toilet. Lovely! And, I was amused at my crazy appetite throughout treatment, which gave me the hunger of ten men for three or four days after coming out of the Beatson.

As for God and I, we suffered a bit throughout this time. I always picked up with my Bible study and quiet times by the time I was to be re-admitted into Ward F3, but then it suffered again. Time and again, I’ve heard people tell me not to be too hard on myself since chemotherapy was pretty harsh and tired me out so much. Ok, I accept that and I’m very thankful that people prayed for me when I couldn’t pray for myself. Thank you.

Now, when I look back, I think God was quiet because He wanted me to trust Him. He’d already been so good to me throughout surgery and recovery, but now He was silent and seemed to have drawn away, but as I can see now, He was always there. He just wanted to see if I trusted Him. I think I did most of the time, though sometimes I was moody and grumpy about chemotherapy. The whole thing was a lesson of trust and to show me that when I had Him, I didn’t need to be afraid of anything. Not even cancer! To be honest, I am still learning this lesson as I said a couple of posts ago. It is a difficult one and one I will probably always be learning. But also there are probably a lot of things about these last 6 months that I won’t see till later on as I’m still too close to it all. But like all the difficult times I’ve had, I’ll look back at it and be grateful because it made me a stronger woman and brought me closer to God. So I’ll praise God in advance for bringing me closer to the woman He wants me to be. Amen.