cancer – day 355
Oh dear lord, how do people get through this? Like, I am going to have to go back to my journal from chemo 2 and 3 and 4 to remember how the hell people get through this. So much pain, I can’t describe it. There’s no way in hell I’m going to be able to walk tomorrow, let stand up long enough to run a seminar or navigate an airport to get home. I . . . just . . . so much PAIN . . . I can’t even express it in words.
And I’ve done so well all day, too. There were only a couple of people out of 60 who knew about the cancer diagnosis last year, and they both made a point today about saying how great I looked and all, but someone who didn’t know made the comment in the elevator at 6PM that I looked completely exhausted, which was not exactly inspiring for getting though the 3-4 hours more I knew I had to get through before I could be alone in my room for some recovery time.
And then when it was over and I was finally heading back to my room at 10PM, in so much pain I could barely walk, of course there are four (or more?) clients sitting in the lounge area chatting, who motioned me over as I tried to skirt past on the outside of the room. All very kind, well-intentioned guys (very few women in transportation management these days, history notwithstanding), asking humorously if I’ve been following Dancing With the Stars this year, because they knew I was also a professional ballroom dancer on the side of being a supply chain consultant in transportation and running their MBBC. So of course it came out that I still love and record and watch the show but that I’m not teaching any more because of the neuropathy side-effect from chemo. And I honestly thought I kept it all upbeat and positive, but oh dear lord, by the time we were done talking I SERIOUSLY could not walk another step and I limped to the elevator in excruciating pain, my face turned away from the crowd of people I’d just been laughing and making light of cancer treatment and recovery with. I managed to hold back the tears until the elevator opened on my floor, but by the time I got to my room some forty paces from the elevator, my face was literally dripping with mascera like I was an about-to-be-murdered shot in a B-rated horror film.
But, I made it, and now I have seven hours to try to recover and then not limp or cry or divulge pain for five more hours until the Summit is over, then I can hobble my way back to the Atlanta airport to go home.
At the moment, my feet hurt as bad as the very worst I remember from chemo. I couldn’t possibly stand up on my feet and god-forbid WALK on my feet right now to save my life, let alone in heels. The balls of my feet are fireballs and being stabbed with knife-pains that I cannot imagine standing on another minute, and yet somehow I have to get through tomorrow too before it’s over. Walking on my heels without the balls of my feet even touching the carpet is excruciating, and letting the balls of my feet touch the floor right now is so severe it makes me faint. As soon as I got in the room, I collapsed on the bed, feet hanging from the knees, in so much pain I couldn’t even reach down to unbuckle my shoes.
How the HELL do people do this, day in and day out? I just can’t imagine the pain being at it’s worst like this all the time, and surviving. As it is I don’t know how I get through a week, or even a DAY like today, where I have to stand on my feet much at all. And it’s nothing, absolutely nothing, to what I would have done a year ago running around in my high heels managing this seminar-thing. It is soooooo hard sometimes to imagine a day where it doesn’t burn to stand on my feet or use my fingertips, and now, at the end of a very long day at the beginning of a seemingly very long week, I am just lost as to imagine surviving it.
I have no idea how people with bad neuropathy get through each day or how they deal with the really bad fireball burning for unending periods of time.
And for anyone who’s suffering neuropathy and it’s nerve damage for any length of time after chemo, please just hold on and keep trying and hoping. Life just can’t possibly be as miserable as this for any length of time without respite. If I can just hold on and tough it out another day, or two, or three, it just has to get better and be more tolerable. It’s just not possible that it can stay like this. And I’m sure if you read my blog again in several days I’ll be reporting how it did get more sufferable and I DID survive this trip, and I’ll soon be talking again about how life moves on after cancer and as ususal I don’t know how I got through the difficulty but I did, which means everyone else can, too.
There just isn’t any alternative but to keep on, going on.