A tough week

Hello everyone, sorry for the radio silence, I do try to post as regularly as I can as I know so many of you are keen to know how I'm doing.  If I am not posting regularly you can assume it is because things are really good, or particularly bad.  Obviously it has been the latter this time!

I honestly thought I could cope much better with pain than with the nausea, but it turns out pain in your face is a particularly unpleasant type of pain!!!!  I have had a problem with pain in my left ear and eye since chemo #2 when I had that lovely afternoon in A and E being looked over and it was concluded it was just a chemo side effect.  I then had a bad cold and cough during chemo cycle #3 which persisted over Christmas so I put sinus pain down to the cold.  Unfortunately, since having  Docetaxel #1, the pain increased and by the middle of last week was quite extreme.  I had 3 nights of no sleep at all due to the pain.  Add to this the absolute sheer exhaustion and muscle ache from the Docetaxel itself and you can imagine, I was in a bad way!  Docetaxel is known to cause inflamation of the peripheral nerves - neuropathy, which causes numbness and pain in the hands and feet.  But, it is not typical to experience this in the facial nerves.  My GP thinks its the trigeminal nerve that has been effected, this is a nerve which runs through the ear, eye and along the jaw which is exactly where the pain is.    She prescribed me a drug to treat trigeminal neuralgia but unfortunately it does not work instantly because it needs to build up in your system.

It's a week on now and the pain is finally under control, it's hard to know why.   It could be the amytriptaline for the neuralgia is finally working or it could just be the chemo effects wearing off so it's improved, who knows.  I will probably stay on the amytriptaline until the end of chemo just in case.  As well as the pain, I've just felt horrendous generally, not able to do anything or even move around much without needing to sit down.   But.....I have turned a corner today I think :-). I went for a walk yesterday and it was hard.  Today it will be easier, and tomorrow easier still, I'm sure.

Never take for granted what your body does for you, it is truly amazing.  I am so impressed with how
my poor body keeps bouncing back....it's suffering but it's fighting.  The latest joy (other than my ever disappearing eyebrows) is the nail bed pain.....my big toes basically feel like I have stubbed them on the corner of a chair repeatedly!  This is a common effect of Docetaxel.... Nails often discolour and come away from the nail bed, and even fall off......yuk, not looking forward to that!

While feeling horrible and sorry for myself yesterday, I received another annonymous parcel full of beautiful things.  Here I am with my puffy eyes, patch eyebrows, baldy head, but with a beautiful, soft, snugly scarf which I haven't taken off since.  Whoever you are, thank you for putting as smile on my face yesterday with your generous, thoughtful and just very kind gifts.

During this horrible past week, my two babies had their birthdays!  Isla turned 3 and Abi turned 6 ...... Here they are...