On Feeling Better

When you have a physical illness it's relatively easy to point at something and say 'that hurts less today' and also to understand why it hurts less, there's a physical healing process. With me, as well as feeling physically shot I've also been 'down.' I wouldn't go so far as to say depressed, it hasn't been that bad, but definitely not feeling myself. I don't think this is directly because I have been diagnosed with cancer, to be honest that's never really bothered me, I've always assumed I'd get over that. However with cancer the treatment is pretty brutal, I've described it before as medieval, slash and burn medicine. Slash out the tumor with surgery and burn away any remaining cells with radiotherapy and/or chemotherapy, none of this is very pleasant, but it will likely have a happy ending.

The issue with the treatment, at least for me, is the medium to long term effects, these are the things you have to live with for a while after the cancer has, hopefully, gone. For me this has been loss of appetite, loss of taste, stiff shoulder, stiff neck, dryness. You may look at this and think 'get over yourself, none of them is that big a deal' and you're probably right. But, when I look at these and think I may have to live with them for the next 10,20,30,40 years then it shines a different light on them, and I think that is what's been getting me down over the last three months.

This week things have changed, and I can't point at it and say why. I'm generally a happy, optimistic person, but I haven't been for the last few months, at least not as much as I normally would. But for some reason this week I feel a lot happier, a lot more like my old self. Maybe it's just a timing thing, as enough time goes by you body gets better and your mind sees that and starts to feel better. IANA psychologist so I'm in no position to say.

One thing may have contributed though, I'm starting to get my appetite back. I still can't taste much and I'm still dry but now I want to eat. This is a huge plus for me. I can't say what came first, appetite or feeling better, and I'm not convinced there's a link (correlation does not imply causation) but it's good to be feeling something like back to normal.

One other minor thing, the beard is coming back on my right cheek, not very thick yet but there's definitely something there. Another small victory.