Is the End in Sight?

Chemotherapy is finished. Picture me dancing round the kitchen and jumping up and down with joy!

The last remnants of the side effects are slowly fading and I began to think I could finally see the end of the cancer road on the horizon.

Firstly, to anyone who has ever maintained their professional life through treatment, you are true superheroes. I have barely maintained myself the last 18 weeks and even imagining myself at work has been impossible.

The first 3 cycles of chemotherapy made me nauseous, depressed, tired, unable to interact properly with the people who love me and, at the last cycle, contemplating stopping treatment all together. I’m a tough cookie but make me feel sick and I’m basically a whiny toddler!

The last 3 cycles of drugs came with a new and equally awful set of side effects; joint pain like nothing I have ever felt, loss of taste, ulcers, diarrhoea, fatigue, headaches, nosebleeds. And those things built and built with each cycle. By the end of cycle 3 of docetaxel I could feel the poison in my body. But I could also feel it leaving and the relief that goes with that is quite phenomenal.

I am now in the magical 3rd week after chemo and besides an odd metallic taste in my mouth, the side effects have passed and I feel ready for the last stage of treatment. Three and a half weeks of daily radiotherapy.

So many people have told me how quickly it seems the time has gone since diagnosis last summer. It hasn’t flown by quite so fast from the inside. Mum and the kids in particular know how long it has felt to us. The babes have been shipped off to nannies more times than I can count so I can sleep for 16 hours straight, 4 days in a row. Endless days spent at home because I just havent had the strength to leave the house. Snappy, mean, impatient days when I don’t have the ability to control my own temper. Struggling to keep on top of daily life as a lone parent. Add in 2 admissions to hospital with infections and it’s been a hard road for us all.

I am now preparing for the fatigue that radiotherapy will bring alongside the first sure signs of medically induced menopause.

I have had moments through treatment already where I felt the impending sting of menopausal symptoms – unexpected and intense hot flashes, sudden dips in mood.

I started taking medication 2 weeks ago which works to stop my body producing oestrogen. And last week I had my first injection of Zoladex. The two combine to shut down my ovaries and bring about a medically induced menopause at 40 years old. I’ll be having this treatment for 5 years now and underestimated the harsh and sudden onset of symptoms.

I feel sad and emotional one minute, full of rage the next. I cannot hold my temper and the slightest thing irritates me. And this is just the beginning. The physical symptoms will, I’m sure, take hold very soon. From looking at radiotherapy as the end of the cancer road I now realise that it is far from over.

Staying positive and upbeat through cancer seems even easier now in comparison to trying to do the same through menopause! The physical battle I have fought, and won, was in my control, my brain was on my side. But menopause and the massive hormonal changes is a chemical process inside of me that is outside of my control.

I have had bouts of depression over the years, as so many of you will have experienced yourself. I unashamedly medicate to this day in order to stop my anxious mind getting away from me and keep me balanced in what can be a very cruel and unpredictable world.

Post natal depression crippled me after the birth of my daughter and the intense, unshakeable sadness that consumed me when their father left, almost defeated me completely.

I now live with a devil on my shoulder, whispering to me that depression is never far away and I cannot cope with the symptoms. So far, early menopause reeks of it and it scares me if I’m honest. To not be in control of my own mind, feelings, reactions again is not something I can comprehend. My recent years living by the sea have helped to turn my mind into a calm, rational, happy place where I am comfortable with my thoughts, comfortable with myself. We have built a beautiful life here, despite my run of bad luck when it comes to my health and I have sworn every day that I will fight anyone or anything that threatens our peace. So now I will once again, fight my own mind during these changes.

I am about to start on another path where my general health will be addressed. There is no magic scan after treatment to tell me that it worked. I just have to trust that the surgery, chemicals, radiation and medication have combined to do their job and cured my cancer. So in order to move on without constant fear, I have to focus on something huge and positive. I have imagined myself back at the gym after so many years, working away the weight that I have gained through not only the last 8 months of treatment but through the 20 years prior to this when I put my own health second to everything else and gained weight that I didn’t attempt to shift. I looked at my health in such a nonchalant manner that I am actually, for the first time in my life, angry, disgusted and hugely disappointed in myself. So I will work hard to gain control of my body, just as I have my mind. But the hardest battle will be silencing that devil who is already telling me that for every pound I work to lose, menopause will put it back. Every hair that grows back on my head, menopause could tear out. And, ofcourse, every win and good day will be clouded by underlying, hormonal induced depression. Damn you devil.

When all is said and done, I take solace in the fact that I am soon to be declared cancer free by my release from the NHS. I take strength from the knowledge that I stayed positive throughout. And I look to the future with excitement to see the woman I am yet to become. I can only see this as another adventure, another period where I cocoon in the work and the battle, in order to emerge new again.

The irony ofcourse is that I am entering menopause just as my daughter enters puberty. My poor son! This will be a hormone fuelled household for some years now and I hope he comes out the other side with a new empathy and understanding of women, rather than a desire to run and hide!