Chemo Brain. I've succumbed.
I'm so disappointed. I've had to defer from my studies. Having plowed through a double advanced dip in management and HR while I was in treatment I assumed, wrongly, that I could continue and do the last 8 subjects to complete a degree. No.
My brain will not work properly and I honestly think it is getting worse. My body is a wreck. The pressure of dealing with the aftermath of this round of treatment, financial misery, a new job and study has done me in. After a couple of excruciating weeks of trying desperately to keep juggling I've come to the sensible, but devastating, conclusion that something has to give. I can do nothing about the side effects and I have to work or I will go completely down the financial gurgler. The only stress I can dispense with is the study. It breaks my heart.
I can do so much, but faced with a 7500 essay plus attachments I've reached my limits. I simply can not retain a train of thought for long enough to do anything properly. This is exhausting and demoralizing. I get a couple of thousand words done, have to leave it for a few days then come back to discover I have absolutely no idea how I got to the point where I left off.
I don't give a shit about being told that I'll improve. The world won't stop while I limp around in circles trying to get my act together.
Now I find that the benign looking lump that has appeared on my eyelid needs immediate attention. This has meant travelling back and forward to Melbourne to consult with an opthalmic plastic surgeon who has agreed, reluctantly, to remove the fucking thing under a local as opposed to her preferred process of doing it under sedation. In the Epworth. Yeah, right, like I can afford that. Waiting lists for the Eye and Ear are ridiculous and I need this thing gone.Sitting still and sucking it up will save me about $6k. But it is the final straw.
The whole business of recovery eclipses treatment. You know, there have been a few ladies lately who have asked for advice about undergoing chemo when the stats don't seem very convincing. I always feel like screaming RUN AWAY! Of course, we shouldn't do that, but I sure as shit wish I'd taken my own personal council. At least then there would be half a chance of a decent life until the cancer train finally runs me down. End rant.
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Perfect description "The whole business of recovery eclipses treatment" - that's what those medical students need to understand. I was offered chemo with only 3% and I said hmm, what else is on offer? I was told if he had said closer to 8 or 9% he would've pushed me. My breast surgeon had said to me prior to seeing the oncologist that he couldn't see any benefit in putting me through chemo so I kept that thought as I went to see the Onc. Having said that my treatment process has been extremely slow, sending me into fatigue mode and feeling like I'm dragging the chain, only just finished treatment and I'm now at 7 years and 8 months to go on tamoxifen (unless they change it). My cancer was hormone positive hence the hormones are playing up and the endometrium lining is thickening more than they would like, under a Gynaecology Onc (never knew there was such a thing) so like a lot of others I'm in the "this BC keeps giving" category.Zoffiel said:The whole business of recovery eclipses treatment. You know, there have been a few ladies lately who have asked for advice about undergoing chemo when the stats don't seem very convincing. I always feel like screaming RUN AWAY! Of course, we shouldn't do that, but I sure as shit wish I'd taken my own personal council.
Geez don't we learn a lot of terminology and names of specialists that we had no need for and no idea how to spell their titles prior to all this. Give me back the days of the occasional Panadol!
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Oh damn. What a let down. OK, I won't mention improving. Get your eye fixed, I have to go and get cataracts removed. My problem's just ageing, and utterly unrelated to treatment. But there is enough on this site to make one incredibly wary of side effects and hidden nightmares, particularly if the success rates aren't too exciting. I am not at all sure what I would do if I had to go there again. Same as everyone else really, what seems best at the time. This is still not a day to worry about alcohol. Or ranting. But I hope you can direct your black feelings towards someone who deserves them, not yourself. Best wishes.2
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the rest of the post...
@zoffiel how utterly shitful. I sincerely hope that your disappointment gives way to relief from the stress. Hopefully the break will help your brain and body somewhat heal so you can have another bash at it down the track. The Diploma and new job you've achieved are remarkable, as are you. All the more time to soak in your spectacular garden bath and behave like a lush1 -
*Sigh* I'm hearing you. I am trying to keep myself together well enough to keep my job. There's a fogginess about my thinking and it is a constant effort to keep focused on anything. Timetabling myself is hard. Remembering appointments is impossible. Multi-tasking is a thing of the past. I hardly know myself. I was considering doing a PhD before I got breast cancer and now I am so glad I didn't start it. I would never have completed it. These days I wake up wondering what day it is and where I am. I'm disoriented a lot of the time.
It's good that you had the option of deferring. I hope some time and rest allows your body and mind to recover somewhat. You can always come back to it if you feel motivated, or you can leave it and move on to other things in your life if you no longer feel motivated. So much changes in our lives that we don't always have the same goals.2 -
Hi there marg. I’m hearing you....... I’m an endorsed enrollled nurse and have been trying to complete my degree as well over the past couple years but have deferred due to everything that’s gone on with us over the past couple years. I work fine no issues there but the concentration needed for the assignments is just mind boggling and I packed it in earlier in the year too. The academic writing is just too much for my post chemo brain to manage. If you told me to write 2000 words on the heart .... no issues there but uni papers are just so bloody cryptic and confusing so don’t worry your not alone. Going to try and give my advanced diploma a crack through TAFE instead as it’s more work placed based assessment. The new normal definately gives me the shits too. And I totally get your chemo argument for sure and the financial stuff as well. It all fucking sucks for sure. People who haven’t been through what we have would say we should be grateful to be alive.... and of course we all bloody are... but the rest of it is just fucked Sometimes hey. Margie xx
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Ah, thanks ladies. I can't say I'm glad I'm not the only one, because I wouldn't wish this on anyone. Hmm, OK, maybe i could think of a couple of people who could do with a good dose of confusion and disorientation, but one must mind ones karma. I already keep expecting to find a dead albatross lurking in the mess here....
The New Shrink didn't help 'I really do recommend this medication to stabilise your mood' Pah, I've never been stable in my life, why start now? This shit is enough to make any body miserable. Throwing a chemical blanket over it won't make it go away and I don't need to feel any further underwater than I already do. It's a dilemma.
Like you, @katiet I miss the ability to multitask the most. Having to plod through everything, one task at a time, is maddening. It is what it is, but, seriously? How the hell are we meant to get anything done?
Oh well, on the upside, I've been keeping an eye on the tree crew who have been in town pruning around the powerlines. I waited until after lunch yesterday then approached them and suggested there might be a box of beer sitting by my back gate if anyone was interested in swapping it for a load of mulch. They thought cold beer on a Friday was a great idea and dumped 20 meters for me. That will give me a bit of mindless redneck rehab to go on with
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Oh @Zoffiel , so glad to see you still have your unique sense of black humour intact!. I had a run in with the White Coat Brigade about twenty years ago where their solution was to either, as you put it, throw a chemical blanket over it, frazzle it with ect or try to confuzzle by brain further by the following sorts of questions. "Do you have any pets?" ..."Yes, cats"....Scribble scribble..."How many cats?"....."Seven"... Scribble scribble along with elevated eyebrow...."Do you talk to your cats?"...."Oh yes, I do"....even more frantic scribbling...you get the drift. Needless to say, I lack confidence in this bunch. The brain farts which I now have leave me so frustrated as I've always enjoyed using words to express myself. I like to give them a tweak, make them jump, make them dance, weave pictures with them. So to be reduced to calling everything the "thingy", you know the clicky thingy, the whatchumacallit, the thingamabob, the dingamalery, the you know...Oh fuck it...forget it...reduces me to tears of frustration! Me bursting into tears in the bank because I had forgotten my pin number, and I was afraid the machine was going to swallow my card, was a huge humiliation. However, I dust myself off, and with my trusty walker, stumble on from one disaster to the next, chuckling evilly as I go. One can only hope that things will improve for all of us thus affected, and if not, I'll probably end up on the sauce, at least then I'll have an excuse..
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And I thought it was just me!!!!I take my prozac everyday and alls well, just dont ask me to park the car anywhere other than where i park it every single time i go to the local shops, because if you do you will be walking home!!!
and thank goodness i have a partner who remembers my appointments otherwise we will have spent a 4 hour drive taking in the scenery because guess what its the wrong day!! {he does remind me of this on the eve of every appointment i have}
you have to laugh dont you, because if you didnt, well its not worth crying over}
keep calm and carry on I say!
wendy55
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Hi there. I can relate. Not sure you remember my recovery story but it took me a long time to get back to work full time and continue with a fully funtioning brain. It's 14 months since chemo and 9 months since herceptin (mine was stopped early). I've only been at full time work since Easter.
I find now if I'm overstressed and overtired. ..well my memory just goes out the door. I can't recall details I normally can...names particularly. ..and I get teary. I have found that resting after work has been important. Taking time out during the day for a walk or something to just reduce stress.
I am on an antidepressant...have been for years. It doesn't cure it. But it can help clarify your thinking so you can do the things that assist in reducing stress. Without it I find my head is an endless record of worry and muddled thinking. The chemical imbalances of depression really mess with your head at times and make it so much harder.
I really want to study too, but I know currently I'm not in the right head space for it. Life remains too hectic and still full of worry (even if I pretend I'm not...it's really still there just lurking).
I hope the break from it helps and recovery will go on. You will get back to it, that I'm certain, but accepting you need to take some time out from it is great...when you get to that head space where you say " it's okay I'm doing this" I'm sure you feel better about it. Kath x2 -
It might not be legal in your state but I swear by cannabis oil. It helps regrow the chemo stunted brain neurons.
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Sorry that you had to defer your studies. But please, @Zoffiel, please, write...something.....short , long, disjointed, whatever. You have such a talent for a turn of phrase I am sure you could publish your shopping list and it would be entertaining. If you can make an adventure of procuring mulch, you could write anything! You just need to write until you empty your brain, rinse and repeat! (I am still wondering whether the albatross was an Ancient Mariner reference, or a Monty Python reference)3
