Tethered

Today is a woe is me day. It’s the day after my chemo infusion and the nausea is wearing off enough to examine my circumstances but the 48hr pump connected to my chest port coupled with fatigue is keeping me bed bound and unable to commit to anything on Netflix.

My bedroom smells, a combination of my lazy German Shepherd Charli, unopened windows and the fact it’s about time to change the linen. The aroma is a reminder that I should have aired out and cleaned out before I became tethered to my room but alas here we are.

Chemo was so hard this week, not because I had a worse reaction to the drugs, it was fine. It was a public holiday for Easter Monday and the nurses on duty were perfectly lovely, it was all just me. I just didn’t want to be there. I cried when I first sat down in those plastic blue recliners, I cried when they accessed my port and turned on the drip. I cried when the volunteer in the purple shirt asked me if I wanted a cup of tea.

All I wanted was to get up and run away, I wanted to scream at them not to touch me, to leave me alone, to let this cancer play out however the hell it wanted. I didn’t care if that meant death, I just wanted to leave.

I turned away from all of them and buried myself into the recliner ashamed by the hot tears running down my cheeks. I knew I looked foolish, I knew I couldn’t explain to anyone why I felt this way. I couldn’t explain it to myself. I could only nod or shake my head to the nurses questions and make occasional eye contact with my husband who sat there looking awkward. I knew my reaction was hurting him but I could only squish my eyes shut tight and wait for it to be over while trying to stop crying. I needed so badly to pretend I was okay but I wasn’t and I couldn’t.

Eventually the infuser beeped, I still couldn’t look at anyone. A nurse attached the pump and we left, a random woman on the worlds slowest lift asked if it was my first treatment , I shook my head and managed to answer “6th”. She said her husband was having his third now after a bad infection in his port had meant he’d had to have it removed and now he had a hole in his chest. I murmured something sympathetic in response and hubby squeezed my hand and shot me a “why would she tell you that” glance.

We finally got to the car and drove toward home, I waited in the car while hubby stopped at the local shop to grab something for dinner, he bought me some lemonade icy poles too, they help with the nausea.
I got home and fell into bed, been here ever since.

I feel bad for crying yesterday. I feel weak and pathetic, ashamed. I’ve been sad a lot lately, my heads all jumbled up and confused. I’m exhausted physically and mentally and it feels like this cancer shit has been going on for so long and I’m just too tired to deal with it anymore. It’s not even the cancer that’s making me sad in the first place, it’s just another thing to add to the soup of old wounds.

Tomorrow afternoon we have to go back to the hospital and get the pump taken off, I’m already dreading it, it’s a totally painless experience and it’s very quick, It means I’ll no longer be tethered and I should be excited, but instead I’m scared. I just don’t want to have to go back into that building, I don’t want to smell it’s smell or see the nurses that saw me cry. I’m embarrassed that I can’t just act like a real adult sometimes and take it all without complaining or crying or being a baby. And even if they don’t comment, I’ll know they know.