NASTY

In the 20 years that we’ve been together I’ve seen Sam give birth 4 times (3 natural and 1 through the sunroof), have an ulcer on her eyeball (through the use of contact lenses), have umpteen throat and eye infections, a sentinel lymph node biopsy and the FEC treatment, but I have never seen her complain, moan or stop once. She would just keep going no matter what. Docetaxel, however, has completely stopped Sam in her tracks. They weren’t wrong when they said that it was a nasty little bugger. They warned her that her joints and bones would ache and there would be some fatigue, but I don’t think Sam expected it to affect her so much.

“I feel like all my bones in my legs are being crushed bit by bit and it’s spreading up through my body”

That’s how she described the way she was feeling yesterday. She hasn’t been able to move off the sofa all weekend. Her face is red and swollen, she looks like she’s heating up all the time (either that or she’s drinking a lot of whiskey without me noticing), her eyes are starting to get really sore and swollen on one side and her skin is starting to really dry out. I think it’s safe to say that she’s not had the best bank holiday weekend so far. They say that this is only supposed to last a few days after the treatment, so hopefully she’ll start to feel better as the week goes on. We keep checking her temperature and so far she’s holding up ok.

One of the other main jobs is making sure that we keep an eye on how many paracetamol and neurofen she’s taking because it’s easy to lose count in a situation like this. I think we’ll make sure we get something stronger for the next session of Docetaxel though because so far nothing else has touched the pain.

The only advantage (If you can call it that) we can take from this weekend is that at least Sam is armed with the knowledge of what to expect the next time round. She can request certain medicines to help combat the side effects and maybe make things slightly more comfortable. She just has to make sure the list includes lots of eye drops, moisturiser, some big ass pain killers and a cocoon to wrap herself in for at least 5 days.