Living with my cancer Pain and me
Pain ! What is it, I’m lying here at 3.30am and a few splinters of pain have woke me up. This is different than being woken up by the chemicals that don’t allow sleep. Those are different because you are wide awake and can’t do a lot about it. Tonight its like a hazy dream that you slowly feel you are awakening from, you feel something but you are not really sure if it’s a dream or you are awake yet.
It’s not a nice feeling , in this state I feel insecure and not comfort. I feel anguish and not clarity . The pain thoughts start to multiply as I become more conscious of it all. At this time of the night everything seems magnified , the pain is a sharp burning sensation , it feels nearly the same as it did after the radiotherapy zapping I had a few months ago, but it’s not quite the same , it seems more menacing somehow, deeper and more hurtful.
I’ve never been good with pain. I take a few paracetamol and wait for it it to take effect, I lie hear in my bed starting to fire up my imagination. The pain although sharp is not terrible but my thoughts have another agenda, they are telling me it’s the cancer spreading, multiplying and becoming more powerful. It’s the cancer taking over now and there is nothing I can do, I’m doomed. The pain is telling me I’m killing you and there is nothing you can do about it.
This is what my thoughts are telling me, if I allow them too. I make a conscious decision to shut my thinking down, not to focus on the areas of my body where I feel the pain the most. The pain is telling me to focus on it, it’s like a hypnotherapist drawing my focus into it, this is the point where I must not give in to it otherwise it’s got me for a lot longer. Pain loves nothing more than my undivided attention, it sulks when it’s not number one you know. It’s like a naughty child when it’s being sent to the naughty step. That’s it great idea I’ll visualise my pain being sent to the naughty step, off you go you bad boy. I could do a lot more with it too. I can imagine it being a colour and then slowly turn the colour down till it becomes opaque and not here anymore.
The pain has familiar memories attached to it, I cant quite pin them down in the haze of the night, is it a dream I’m in. Pain feels worse at night because there is nothing else happening in that silent world, there is nothing to distract me from it, no TVs or cars or noises of people going about their daily lives. This time of night it’s like the tide is out and everything is bare, and then the thoughts come. Pain thoughts are the worst, because they are so biased on it being bad especially if you are a cancer sufferer.
What does that even mean a “cancer sufferer” does that mean I suffer because of cancer or I’m just someone who has that label and yet most of the time I don’t feel I’m suffering from anything. I chose to not be a sufferer, it’s like I’m it’s slave and cancer is my master, well know way is that going to happen. I’m the boss in this , let’s get this clear.
The pain is leaving me , I’ve stopped focusing on it , writing this has helped to take my mind off it , which is really bizarre as I’m writing about how it makes me feel right now in the really early hours of the morning , or is it still night, I’m confused what to call it, but anyway it doesn’t matter if it’s late or early its quiet and lonely, it’s like the twighligt zone, neither morning or night, it’s that time inbetween.
The act of typing what I’m feeling is strangely reassuring , it’s better than lying hear and cancer having me all to its self. Writing is therapeutic for me, there is no doubt my pain is fading, perhaps because I forgot to focus on it for a few minutes, perhaps the tablets have kicked in , I forgot to say thanks to them, belated thank you to the two paracetamol that I disolving into my bloodstream and gently roaming round my body now looking for some pain to have a tear up with. Well its round 1 to the tablets. Ding dong round 2 is just about to commence. I imagine the prize fighter in my head is a tablet with a blue cloak on and in the opposite corner is the evil cancer pain in the red corner. Cancers got no chance, you know.
Well time goes quick in these situations, I’ve been writing for a while now and I’m feeling myself becoming sleepy. The pain is sleepy too, I think we both agree to call it a day, we’ve both got a busy day ahead tomorrow too, fighting each other, but there’s only going to be one winner and that’s me, so if I was you cancer I wouldn’t even bother to set your alarm tomorrow.
