Sometimes a person is just done. That’s all there is to it. You are tired of everything. You need to find some way to escape from your reality. You can’t function anymore because nothing makes sense. You need to get away from everything and everyone and just simply be done. You aren’t done living life and ready to die done but you are just so tired from being sick and barely existing that you need a time out from life. It’s like that nursery rhyme you sang as a child, “Rain rain go away, Come again another day.” I’d love to be able to say that to cancer sometimes. I try so hard to be positive and upbeat about my situation but some days a person’s will just isn’t strong enough. We all have those days.
I was staying with a friend during the first week in April 2016, when my health started to rapidly decline. I had a month and a half of almost daily vomiting that started with no warning on this trip. During the last week in March 2016, I was finished being weaned off the steroids that I had been prescribed to reduce the swelling and fluid that was on my brain. I was started on a fairly high dose of drugs in the hospital when I found out that the cancer had spread to my brain and I had my radiation treatment. The side effects from the steroids were very intense. I went from eating pretty much all the time because I felt like I was almost starving on the high dose to the very thought of eating food repulsive to me once I was fully weaned from the drugs. I would have to force myself to take even a few bites of food because I knew I needed to eat in order to survive. It was one of the hardest things that I had to do.
My body doesn’t handle the anti-nausea meds very well. For some reason all of the regular go-to drugs either make me even more nauseated, give me horrible cramps, or they simply don’t work. Often I’ll vomit shortly after they’ve finished running the drugs through the IV line to my port. One of the most serious problems with me is that once I start to vomit, I can’t stop. I dehydrate quickly because I can’t hold down any food or water so I don’t eat or drink anything which can be a bit scary when you haven’t really been able to or wanted to eat in over a month. I firmly believe that I’m my best advocate and I won’t hesitate to tell the staff at the hospital the anti-nausea drugs don’t work. They will still insist on trying all the go-to ones first. In fact, I ended up in the hospital on April 12 and they tried all different drugs until finally the Dr. started me back on the steroids since I wasn’t vomiting on them. I was weaned off them again at the very end of August and started vomiting almost instantly and I vomited for two months. After going to the hospital and having Home Care come to my apartment almost daily for fluids, I was finally willing to be admitted into the hospital November 1, 2016. I stayed in there until I asked to be discharged December 23, 2016.
Not having medication that works is another factor in the exhaustion. By the time you’ve tried every drug at least ten or more times and told the Dr. ten or more times they don’t work when you go to the ER; you just want to give up trying even new ones because you have doubts they are going to work. Everything they suggest trying hasn’t worked in the past and you are rapidly running out of options to try to get the vomiting under control. I’m still struggling to get over what feels like a bone deep exhaustion from the past few months. The final result in May 2016, was to put me back on a low dose of steroids to see if that would stop the vomiting and of course the vomiting stopped. Eventually I had to stop taking the steroids which made me happy because I truly do hate being on them but I went back to the constant vomiting before I had even taken my last dose August 28. I know the answer is to start taking the steroids again if I do start to be sick but I don’t even want to think about the vomiting starting up again. The thought of it potentially happening is a nightmare I don’t even want to consider. I finally found a new pill that finally stopped the vomiting. It was a gradual process. We would start with a low dose and then increase the mg I was taking until the vomiting finally stopped. It was a long and arduous experience. I was glad when we finally after all that time had positive results. It took from the end of March until almost the end of December last year for us to get such promising outcome.
It’s truly exhausting to a person’s physical and mental self to constantly vomit. When you can’t keep food and water down because even the thought of moving makes you lunge to grab the garbage so you can be sick. When the first thing you do in the morning is wake up and grab your garbage can so you can vomit before your day even starts. When you have to take a garbage can with you to the bathroom because you know that as soon as you sit down you are going to start vomiting from the walking you just did. When every bit of food you eat and every sip of water you drink comes back up almost instantly. When you have to lie perfectly still for an hour after taking your pain medication because any sudden movement might cause you to throw them up and you know that if you don’t take them, you’ll start go through withdrawal. When you have gotten to the point that you know the best smelling brand of garbage bags to buy so the scent of them doesn’t make you vomit even more. When you are having either Home Care come out or you are going in to the ER to get IV fluids because you know from past experience that you will dehydrate fast if you can’t keep your fluid levels up. When you finally get to the point where it is so bad that your Dr just looks at you and tells you that he’ll meet you at the hospital because you are being admitted and you don’t even have the strength to argue the issue because you know you have to go. When you don’t have a day like this, then you can rationalize with yourself that it was a good day. When getting sick is what you do all day, it starts to take a toll on a person. You get to the point where you are just done. Done with everything. Just plain old exhausted and done.
Is My Cancer Affecting Your Ears? 