Snakes and Ladders

All this week I have been wondering what I should write about, what I can add to the story that Rachel and I are weaving? A story about our experiences with cancer; how it has and is effecting us physically, psychologically and emotionally. Very much a shared experience but so different for us both. We are treading down the track at different speeds and encountering different snakes and ladders along the way. However sometimes our paths cross and we seem to know intimately what the other is experiencing. This doesn't happen very often, mind you, because inevitably our journey is so different...maybe as it gets more familiar we will merge more often.
Rachel has spent the week reading wonderful messages from friends who have said that they will 'catch leaves' for her, and that they understand the pain she is going through. I can't tell you all how much this has warmed her heart and helped her process the things that she is experiencing...so thank you all for the wonderful support that you have given her and me too of course.
So, I have been pondering what to add this week...I am half way through my fourth chemo cycle. Easter and all its spring celebrations will hold this cycle up by a week so everything gets delayed somewhat. No matter really, just means that my hair will start to sprout again before it all gets zapped in two week's time. It means that I can go to work and be normal-ish. We had children with 'special needs' in the centre this week and I suggested that we do an Easter Egg decorating contest using my head and one of the other teacher's heads whose hair is fairly sparse! However it never happened...maybe a small blessing having spent the week with the children!! 
It means that I can continue to work on my strength and fitness in preparation for the weeks that I will be spending in hospital later in the summer. I learned this week that running actually stimulates the production of white blood cells! So for someone whose white blood cell count has been off the scale low for the last few months this can only be a good thing.
So what I had in mind to write a little something about this week was pain...or rather the lack of it. I have had some sort of pain now for the best part of two years. First it was the pain my arthritic hip was giving me. That was successfully replaced last spring and as soon as I could I got out and started to walk and swim and eventually run on it again. However, the respite was short lived as I soon developed the thumping pain in my back and other hip that turned out to be the tumours spreading their claws throughout my spine.
My pain, I know, was relatively tame compared to the pain that many other people can and do suffer, some for years on end. Yet for me it was awful, just having that constant throbbing or thumping or straining or tearing all the time introduced other pain demons into my body. Physical pain can then bring on psychological pain, it can bring on frustration at not being be able to do simple tasks, it can lower your mood to a darker place and it can simply be tiring and boring and tedious. It is also all those things to the people around you who might innocently ask 'how are you this morning?" as you walk into work. For an instant you might think about answering with a lie..."oh, I'm fine, feeling better actually"  Mostly I didn't do this. I just said " my back hurts....again....just gonna take some more Naproxen before we head off out to take the group surfing!" That must sound boring to them..."will she ever stop complaining?"

So, since being on all the chemo drugs that pain has gone. Completely. As the tumours shrink in size so the pain has disappeared. So much so that I have been able to continue with my usual physical activities with ease. No more limping and shuffling and stopping to stretch out my back. So much so that I have even been able to run and run and run every day for the last few weeks. The other day I met a fellow villager whilst out on one of my runs with Olive. He has very bad knees and walks slowly with a stick...because he is in constant pain. We stopped to chat and the pain subject came up. I found myself wishing him a moment pain-free. Because the release, the mental and physical weight lifted is better than any drug. Oh... that feeling of waking up and not thinking about pain. That feeling of walking, running and doing stuff with freedom. I wanted him to have that even if for only a moment. 
It feels so ironic to me that the chemo has bought this total feeling of happiness and yet at the same time it is pumping poison around my veins. But this is the lottery with chemo;  with it comes side effects...some good and some not so good.
So that's what I was going to write about. But over the last few days I have been feeling a  pain growing again in my hip...my new hip. Apparently the last scan did show some sclerosis developing there as part of the healing process. Maybe this is what has started to hurt but I know I need to slow down on the running, rest up a bit because the way I feel, now the pain, has returned, is a mood I am not ready to feel again, not yet. Not ever!
So listen to my body I will, pain gives us a message and maybe this message is 'ease up a little, remember where you are at and what is happening to you.' 

Not swimming is so tough, and running has helped a bit to replace the feeling of being out there in nature, immersed in it and working hard to go on a journey across hill top and deep valley. So I guess I just need to pace myself a bit better (can you hear me trying to convince myself as I write this?). Listen to all the signals my poisoned body is constantly sending me and merge with Rachel a bit more. Maybe slow down enough to catch some leaves together, or with Ruth (AKA Rosie Press-ups) who visits us this weekend.
I'm gonna call this blog 'Snakes and Ladders'...mostly I have been climbing throughout this process but sometimes comes that sharp bite, that reminder to slow down or else.....

Thank you also for all the amazing donations to Rachel and Di's Just Giving...you are brilliant, just in case- here is the link to their page....
https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/run-or-die