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| Cancergiggles is an idiot's guide to accepting, living with, laughing at and dying from cancer. The very, very last bit I can't be absolutely sure of, but then who the hell can? I could have written some beautifully crafted, grammatically correct essays but I hope you will understand, that when I say "I don't have a lot of time" I mean it far more literally than you do. I just wanted scribble a few thoughts to maybe light a spark in people - and then it became a book about Cancer, Life, Death, Illness and Politics. ISBN 0955198801 |
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copyright © 2004 Cass Brown
copyright © 2004
Cass Brown
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posted Wednesday, 13 July 2005
HIERARCHY OF PAINS
How can I explain the feeling of finishing a course of capecitabine? First, imagine having your bone structure, muscles and internal organs supplanted by 10 gallons of tepid porridge and your brain replaced by a badly made blancmange. Next, bumble through life for say six months, laughing at carpets and falling asleep at the drop of a hat. Now stick a vacuum cleaner in your ear for a few days and slowly suck the goo out of your skin. It’s a pretty weird feeling all ways round.
The problem with sensations of this sort, is that to the outside world, you look pretty normal (ok, grey with a punchbag face and black eyes, but you know what I mean) and the drug doesn’t cause any major pain or discomfort which could be expressed in words comprehensible to a non chemo addict.
I think I have discovered something entirely new about illness – there is a strict hierarchy of pain if you can develop a split personality. I long ago consigned the handling of all pain to “the other me” – leaving “this me” to enjoy laughter, cream cakes and the misfortune of idiots. My growing revelation however, is that “the other me” is smarter than I thought and files away pains in date order. Let me explain. Four years ago (I think), a superb surgeon performed a long and complex operation which left me with pains which I still have today. I thank him for this, because it prevented me from very quickly turning into a dead person who couldn’t eat cream cakes at all. “The other me” fairly quickly took over the management and day to day running of this aspect of life and as time has passed I have paid less and less attention to it and whilst it is still there most of the time I can honestly say that I very rarely give it a second thought. This leads to my theory that the older complaints take on the distinguished disposition of elder statesmen – eschewing the overt and vulgar brashness of younger complaints, whilst retaining all of their influence. The more recent upstarts, spend their time trying to be in your face but they still have to learn from the masters.
I wonder if the pain killers made me write that?
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