I want to talk a little about extreme fatigue. Not mine, although I am knackered all the time, but my wife. Frequently she has times now whereby the smallest thing can cause her to collapse totally exhausted by the early evening. For someone who used to be very active, working long days as well as bringing up a family, this is frustrating.
This is not just during the times when she is having treatment. Those special periods have their own level of impact. Six hours of drugs being pumped into your body causes many extreme reactions. No, even outside of these times she is constantly shattered. Walk to school (approx a mile)? That will be it for the rest of the day, clean the kitchen and make dinner? Bed by 8pm for you. Every day is the same.
When it a minor achievement to be up at 9pm, you know that something is wrong. Her body is working so hard against the cancer cells that it cannot support the other functions. I have never seen someone so consistently be properly exhausted every day.
The children now see it as normal. Oh mummy is asleep on the sofa again. However I find myself frustrated with this, as it shouldn’t be normal. They should have a mother who can help them get ready in the evening, not a mother who snores over the TV. It isn’t fair on them.
I have said before I am not a doctor, but aside from the destruction caused by the cancer tumours, I feel it is this tiredness that kills people. There is no way that someone can keep fighting that way non stop, and eventually their body will give up. It won’t have any energy left to keep on doing what it needs to do.
Another symptom of the slow destruction that cancer causes unfortunately.