My Mind Everyday!!!

So in my head everyday there is an immense mash up of different emotions and feeling swirling around!  I decided to create this post to try to visualise this and perhaps it will ring true with other patients!!  Please let me know what you think in the comment box below!!

This is pretty much how my brain ends up feeling at the end of every day!!

So these are all the words that go through my mind a hundred times a day!!

Chemo Brain!!

So many things going on at once!!

Yes it is actually a thing and I am currently having first hand experience of this!!  

I only started to notice it once I had finished my treatment and was back home starting to get back into my so called 'normal' life.  Having to run the home again, get ready for Christmas, my daughters dancing activities, school things, etc!  It took me weeks to remember the time of one of my daughters dance lessons, I had to keep asking people over and over again!  I am fine in the mornings but by mid afternoon my mind becomes foggy and I have difffculty understanding things or making decisions.  I have to say to my husband, 'talk to me about it again in the morning as I can't take it in now.'

One of the symptoms of this is that sometimes I cannot get the right word out for something! For example the other day I was trying to say 'buffet' and I actually said 'barbecue'!  I now use the word 'thingy' a lot!  My brain seems to get stuck and I just cant get the message from it to my mouth to verbalise the word I'm thinking!!

Memory loss is another symptom, for example me and my sister ordered our daughters the same dress from the internet and I even handed the money over to her but, the next day when I saw her I said 'We need to order those dresses for the girls', to which she replied, 'Anna, we did it last night and you even gave me the money!'  This was one of the first times this happened and before I had Leukaemia I prided myself on my brilliant memory!!

This is actually well known by other cancer patients, I have spoken to a few and luckily we can laugh about it.  However, at the same time its a little worrying as so far I've managed to get away with it, there might be a time when my forgetfulness causes some damage!  Now I check my diary several times a day, ask others around me to keep reminding me of things and write lots of lists!  I am hopeful that in time this will improve!!

My life is full of post it notes!

Here is a link where you can find more info
http://www.macmillan.org.uk/information-and-support/treating/chemotherapy/side-effects-of-chemotherapy/chemo-brain.html

Hundreds of Messages of Support!!

So recently I felt emotionally strong enough to look through my Facebook timeline at all the messages I'd received when I was very suddenly taken ill!

When I started to read them the fear and panic started to bubble up again, I try to ignore these feelings most of the time!  I knew this would be hard but really wanted to do it as my memories of this time are sketchy and I want to make sure I thank everyone for their support!

I've always had a really good memory so this is my first experience of forgetting things that have happened!

When reading these messages I felt incredibly touched and loved and do remember at the time that they really helped!  I was often to ill to reply but did read them all!  I've also kept a lot of the text messages and reading these again was very interesting as for the first 24 hours when I was in hospital they told me I had sepsis.  I have a group of friends from school and we chat via whatsapp, when I messaged to see if they were all available at the same time as I had some news...one of my friends thought I was pregnant!  One of these friends lives in Australia and was so upset she was looking at flights to come and support me!  Reading these messages again has been really emotional as I had forgotten this, their reactions are heartbreaking.  They have since told me that they will never forget where they were and who they were with when they got the dreadful news, a bit like when a big world event happens and you always remember where you were and what you were doing when you first heard the news!   I had messages from people I haven't been in touch with for years and reading the messages now had really made me smile!  I am going to message each person to thank them and aim to keep in touch from now on!

The outpouring of support for me in my town was phenomenal and still is, I am so lucky.

Below are some of these messages!

Cancer Fighter!!!