Hang on, please

I'm dangling over the black, yawning chasm of chemo depression and pain. While I've moved a few feet up the rope and can see the top, I'm not quite there yet. And the edge seems crumbly and dry, as if I'd slide precariously back down if I tried to grasp and pull myself up into the sunshine that illuminates the land of the living.

But I have hope I'll get there soon. I just need someone to keep holding onto the other end of the rope.

During these recovery periods, I always seem to discover something new about myself. Some of those revelations, I like, while I cringe at others. But they make me self aware, which offers me opportunities to explain, or at least apologize, when I feel out of control.

Last week, I discovered my mind emerges from the post-chemo stupor earlier than my body. When my body and mind are both in the chemo fog, and it takes all my energy just to shower and read during the day, they're in sync. I just do what's necessary to get through the day.

But then my mind sharpens and I start to think and plan, while my body continues its decent downhill. The bone pain kicks in, I swell up from the steroids, my hands and feet tingle, the heartburn kicks it up a notch and my tastebuds remain curiously absent.

I want to do things - and I can in small doses - but I'm tired of remaining inactive. So I tend to do more than I should earlier in the day, when I feel good, which makes me hurt as the day progresses. As I lay in bed at night, I pay for my enthusiasm.

It's during this stretch that I think I sink into a depression. My mind is racing along and my body can't follow. So it starts to theorize, this is going to be life from now on. It even prods me to consider the steps along the slippery slope to the end. Cancer fights to get the better of me during these times and I even imagine it growing - instead of shrinking - inside my body. Isn't it ironic the very chemicals designed to kill the nasty cells in my body taunt my mind with images of the cancer taking over my body?

When I get like this, I feel I'm betraying my very spirit and everything I write about on this blog. I feel like an imposter. I am a swollen, pain-filled lump that doesn't get out and grasp the possibilities of each day. I'm irritable and little things bother me. In the dark of night, when all the daily activity ceases, I wallow in sadness and domesday scenarios.

I know it's the chemo, the steroids, the anti-nausea meds, the pain, the pain killers and probably even the Olaparib changing my brain chemistry. Restless sleeps and every day stressors probably contribute to the problem. But I hate it. I hate who I become. I hate that I turn into such a whiner too. (Wah, wah, wah.) This is not the way I want to live my life. But man is it hard to climb out of the hole.

Yet, as I write this, I realize, I'm capturing my thoughts and feelings of this minute, reflecting on the last couple of days. My whole outlook could change over the course of the day or during the next couple of days. I just have to keep holding on to that rope.

Will you continue to hang on to the other end?

Tina