84. Not a good week.

The cold that wasn't a cold has gone, as as soon as it rained I stopped sneezing!

It had made me feel very down the last 2 weeks, in combination to going cold turkey from my beloved fortisip vanilla shakes, and back to normal food totally, topped up with the occasional slim fast.

But I have to say I've still felt totally exhausted and not perking up at all. I have a low level pain where they removed the one back tooth which seems to niggle constantly and inside my mouth, the jaw hinge on the inside of my mouth, all the gum and sinew tissue is always very sore. I'm wondering because they removed the tooth if the impacted wisdom tooth next to it now is deciding to have grow totally horizontal under the gum or if, and this is purely cancer scared speaking, my jaw bone is dying from the radiation 😢. Whatever it's basically pretty miserable 24/7 mouth and tooth wise at the moment. Obviously it all could be down to dry mouth, and the fact the weather has decided to be a bit more normal temperature wise and we keep getting showers on and off over the last week the air isn't so dry and dusty either hopefully I will see an improvement. Last night I had only been to sleep for about an hour and I woke up with terrible upper stomach pain, the bit between your navel and boobs, and after tossing and turning for about an hour and drinking water laying different ways, I eventually ended up on the bathroom floor with a pillow on the bath mat until I eventually threw up ( a mixture of blood and bile 🤮) which immediately made the tummy pain go but obviously did nothing for my throat and mouth. So today I have stayed in bed most of the day, frightened to even have a drink apart from water so I'm not sick again, and totally ruin my throat for the next week. I can't help thinking it's 7 months out from treatment and I actually feel worst for wear than I did 3 months after. 🤒😢 However I'm more than aware of the late effects of the radiotherapy, and it can carry on for months, all I have to do is make sure every time I have a check up they properly look at the places that are giving me issues and confirm its damage not new cancer. I started counselling last week. I'm not sure if it will last, or help, but I just feel it might do me some good now, when I stop feeling like its doing me any service I'll stop going. Cancer has changed the way I see myself, my life, the way I do, or don't challenge the stuff I'm not happy with, and also the way I'm dealing with stuff that I have pushed under for years and just 'got on with it'. If I went to all this trouble to live, I might as well get a few years out of it that I actually sort of enjoy, instead of just 'making do' and compromising for the sake of avoiding change.

I've actually managed to pick up a blanket I was half way through crocheting last year, and nearly finished it over the last week and even cooked a couple of meals from scratch trying to make myself feel more like my old self.

I do find the cooking very hard now when basically I get no enjoyment out of the end result. If it doesn't hurt my mouth and throat eating it after a few bites, it nearly always doesn't taste how I remember it to, or think that it should which is a huge disappointment after making such an effort. I rarely get cake being gluten free, the shop ones are pretty foul and vastly over priced so I don't usually buy anything like that for myself. So last weekend I decided to make some plain muffins/buns and put some almond flavoured white icing on them a real hit of sweet and yummy! Well it would have been if I could still taste sugar properly and the almond essence in the icing didn't just taste like pure chemicals and nothing like almonds at all. 😒 All I wanted was a cake and a cup of tea, neither of which tasted edible, tea still tastes like an old corned beef tin and the buns tasted of metal and washing up liquid.

Sadly it ebbs and flows and some days the taste thing is better than others, especially if my mouth has been dry its 100 times worse, but I really don't think its ever going to go completely and that saddens me beyond explanation. For someone who food was their life, once their job, their love currency, not being able to taste is huge, and something that will effect my life now forever I think, and sadly at the moment there's nothing in my life to replace that sort of joy or reward, so all I feel right now is fear, loss, and pain. Not a brilliant time even though officially I should be grateful that everything for now looks to have been a success!

I'm going to try and take things easy for a couple of days I have things I need to do later this week, and of course our holiday looms large in the future now with only a few weeks to go. Hopefully the thought of laying by a pool and swimming in crystal blue ocean will spur me on nearer the time to shake of any pains and doom and gloom to enjoy another week away from hospital appointments and everything 'cancer'.