Frustration and Radiation

I’ll tell you what sucks: running out of energy to do the things that are normal part of my day.

Every single day I get up and I get dressed and ready so that I look as much as I can like a normal Liz. And every single day I hit a wall and I have to go home and take a rest.

Sometimes it’s at noon and sometimes it’s at four but it happens every day. I thought that I would be feeling better by now. I thought the peripheral neuropathy would be better. It isn’t better. It’s actually spreading. I don’t even call it peripheral neuropathy anymore because it isn’t only in my extremities. I feel it in my arms and sometimes on my legs and I even can feel it on my side. So it’s just neuropathy in general.

Chemo ended on the 15th and yet I often need to excuse myself from work, leaving in the middle of a project or a meeting. Every single day I need to tell my team that I’m sorry, but I don’t have the energy to continue whatever it is that we’re working on or whatever project they were expecting I was going to finish. It feels horrible. I don’t want to have to say I’m tired. I don’t want to have to say I ran out of energy. I don’t want to have to say I can’t do something. And yet I need to do that every single day.

Fatigue sucks and chemo brain sucks and I'm pretty sure radiation us going to suck.

Yesterday, I went to oncology again and met with my radiation oncologist. Afterwards, I was introduced to the team and then had the mapping done. It wasn't terrible, but I wouldn't recommend it if you're just lying around bored. There were lots of people looking at my nakedness and commenting with many numbers that were probably some sort of cancer-busting code. Oh, also, I got my tattoos! They're the very first tattoos I have and I don't like any of them. Such a shame.