A Day In The Life of a Cancer Patient


Hi, my name is Shauna. I have ovarian, uterine, cervical, colorectal, liver (17% survival rate) and lung cancer (4.0% survival rate).

That’s a lot of fucking cancer.

For anyone.

Just one type of cancer is overwhelming for many people…as it should be. But regardless of how many types you have, one bell rings true for us all: cancer sucks.

Me?

I have five types of cancer.

And that’s fucking exhausting.

I just can’t seem to catch a break, can I?

But I think you need to understand what a day in the life a cancer patient is like, whether they have one type of cancer….or five. So? Read on….

1.       We can’t think straight.
Chemo brain. I say this one a lot. I forget shit. A lot of shit. If I don’t write it down, I forget it. Even if I write it down, I forget it. It SUCKS. Not being able to think straight….fucking sucks. It’s not because it isn’t important or that I don’t care….I just FORGET.

2.       We can’t see straight.
My tear ducts are closing, due to chemotherapy. I have to wear my glasses more often than not these days. My left eye twitches like CRAZY when I wear my contacts because it’s crazy dry…and it HURTS.

3.       Our hands hurt.
Neuropathy….sucks. Some days my hands are numb and I can’t type. Some days, my hands HURT and I can’t type. I do the best I can, but I can only do what I can do.

4.       Our feet hurt.
Again, Neuropathy. Sometimes, our feet go numb. They get blue. It SUCKS. You can’t even feel them.

5.       Everything else hurts.
Monday is a great example. I threw up WATER, with blood in it. Everything hurt. I couldn’t get comfortable. No matter what I did. I was freezing, had to get back into bed. Couldn’t keep a damn thing down. I had to go to the doctor for an adjustment in my blood thinner dosage. Fun.

6.       We can’t stay warm.
I am ALWAYS cold. Damn near always. Easier for me to have virtual meetings I can work up to than person to person meetings, where I freeze to death.

7.       Chemo amplifies everything.
What a lot of folks don’t get is that whatever you do, good or bad, is EXTREMELY amplified by chemotherapy.  If you say something nice, it’s amplified, and we appreciate it. If you say something not so nice….it becomes the worst thing you could ever say. Ever. It makes us shut down. We can’t help it. But you don’t get it, and that’s okay. We don’t expect you too. We just can’t deal with it right now. You just need to understand that.  Chemotherapy makes everything worse (in our minds) than what it is, so we are BAD at criticism, fights or much of anything else.

8.       We can’t deal with your meltdowns right now.
People around us have melt downs…constantly. We just can’t deal with them. It isn’t that we don’t care. It isn’t that we are being cold or unfeeling. It’s just that we can’t….not right now. It’s not about you right now, it’s about us. We HAVE TO (for our health) be radically selfish. We can’t deal with your bullshit. If you don’t get it….get gone.

9.       We can’t understand why you are an asshole.
We are just trying to SURVIVE…every single day. When you get mad at us about petty bullshit…we don’t get it. And we get mad back….because all we are focused on is feeling well enough to get us through to the next god damn day. Be sensitive to this. Because us spending our precious energy on getting mad back, on yelling, on screaming or being angry is taking energy away from us fighting this damn disease…this thing that’s killing us. Remember this. We just DON’T have the energy for this. We just….DON’T.

10.   We are trying really hard to not be assholes, even when we are assholes.
You might get mad at us when we don’t respond to texts, to messages, to emails. You have every right to, but sometimes….we just can’t. We just…can’t. We don’t want to talk about it. We are trying really hard not to be an asshole when we are just being an asshole who just doesn’t want to talk about it…again.

Cancer fucking sucks. There are thousands of people out there right now dealing with it, and there are millions of people out there who love those who are fighting cancer without loving the fighter the right way. Love them right. For that, you will never go wrong. Because everyone fighting this fucking disease who is loved wrong is guaranteed to lose this fight. Don’t be the reason they do. Please.

All my love,

Miss Adventures. 
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