And so it begins – am already waking up at night multiple times and having panicky moments in the day as am shitting myself about going in for my SCT on the 18th.
It's all very well for Linda, Prof's right hand woman, to say 'yes come to be consented at 1.30pm on the Wed, then your line will go in at 7.30am on the 19th and you'll get your Melphalan later that day (the evil strong chemo drug whose 1 dose will render me entirely incapacitated), then your cells back on the Friday'.. blah blah, all of which she's probably said 1000 times.
But it's a bloody big deal for me.
My head is wobbling with every thought from:
''How will I cope when the Melphalan gets dripped in – when I know what it's going to do to me the over the next 3 weeks and beyond'
'what will getting my cells back be like – how am I going to react, floods of tears, vomiting from the smell or able to hold It together (think I know the answer to this one too)
''How will I be when my hair falls out, stoical or besides myself, knowing it will be 1-2 years before I look 'like me' again?'
'how ill will I be this time, day by day?'
'will my back issues, being 8 years older and given my lack of mobility make things even worse?'
'Will I even be able to get to the bathroom and back?'
'will it feel like every minute of every day ticks by desperately slowly or will the time pass by ok?'
'how much painful stuff will there be – having the neck lines put in, different cannulas every 2-3 days, the scary ulcers question, other things I can't yet even anticipate? What shit lies in store?'
'Will there be any emergencies?' Unexpected but possible breathing problems, given my existing issues, being the most worrying of all'
'will I make it through?' Much as we all take the most likely scenario that I will survive it, the true reality is that a few people don't.
And of course, going through all this, the biggest question of all – 'will the transplant work and what parts, if any, of my old life will I get back again?
Having to wait probably 3 months or more from now, to recover and see what, if anything, has changed for the better, feels like an interminable wait, with a high possibility of zero return for a huge amount of crappiness and desperate hoping.
So, I'm keeping myself as distracted as possible over the next 10 days, to stop my scared brain running over these questions that no one can possibly answer. Well, as much as I can pretend it's not happening when I still have to go for a CT scan tomorrow, dental hygienist stuff this week etc, as part of the final prep.
Fucking hell, I can't tell you much I wish this wasn't my life.
How much I feel I've paid my dues to sodding myeloma more than a million times over already. How my body is pretty much wrecked and in need of a break, not an upcoming beating. How I want to cry when I realise I can barely remember feeling well, because this has gone on so long and insidiously become my new reality. And how despite being a decent enough human, this mountainous challenge stands with its ugly mocking face before me.
I want to turn the clock forward in the hope I can see that yes it does work and it will all be worth it. But of course that's not poss, so I'll keep trying not to hear the SCT clock ticking down. Bear with me lovely friends, and thank you all for being the bloody fantastic, supportive, piss-taking, funny bunch you are.
x x x