I'm not convinced

My Mum was so ill at this point but still happy to drink a
green juice to make me feel better.

This has been the toughest week so far for my Mum. Last Friday was her 4th chemo session and for the last 3 sessions (including the one she has just had) the strength of the drugs will increase.

I'm not sure if I've vocalised on the blog before that I'm not convinced chemo is always the way to go but I'm not and this week has only strengthened this opinion.

My Mum has been in intense pain since Sunday (today is Friday). All day and all night she has lived with a severe aching/pain in ALL her muscles. She has been too weak to move but also in too much pain to stay still. She has felt sick, not eaten, not slept, has a sore mouth, throat, head, ears, feet... She has had no respite and as I've mentioned before, when everyone else is sleeping she is still wide awake dealing with the pain - alone.

On Thursday (yesterday) the pain got too much and so she went to her doctors for help. They left her waiting for 30 minutes and she was in such a state in the waiting room she had to leave because she quite literally couldn't take it any more. I'm gutted that I was at a meeting in Brighton and so not around to help but also a little relieved. Firstly because I really hate seeing my Mum in so much pain and secondly because I would have seriously kicked some doctors / receptionist butt. I completely understand that they are busy and there are lots of sick people that need to be seen but when a patient who has cancer, is battling through chemo and is writhing around the waiting room in pain then SURELY someone could have done SOMETHING?

My Mum decided to Leighton Hospital A&E instead to see if they could help and luckily they were amazing. As soon as they saw the state of her they put her in a wheelchair and took her off for blood tests and more importantly they gave her pain relief in the form of liquid Morphine. My Mum called me at this point and although I couldn't hear properly I managed to make out 'Flying' and 'amazing'. Apparently it relieved her of all her pain starting from her feet upwards and for the first time in nearly a week she felt half normal... not that she really knows what normal feels like anymore.

The blood tests revealed she had a fungal infection in her throat and a viral infection which gives out flu like symptoms. Anyone who has had real flu will know how bad the intense aching feels. Try imagining that on top of the type of aching and pain you get from chemo... you probably can't as it would be too much to bare but this is what my Mum went through.

I mention that I'm not convinced about the chemo because it's why my Mum is going through all this. Without the chemo right now my Mum would be pain free. To all intents and purposes she would also be cancer free. The scans she had after the mastectomy were pretty much clean with no extra tumors. The chemo is given as a precautionary measure just in case there is any cancer cells that are too small to detect BUT... there may not be any cells in the first place AND there is ONLY a 10% chance that it will even help. To help us understand this, the doctor explained it like this -'if there are 100 women who go through this chemo, 10 of them will survive/ be clear of cancer because of it. The other 90 may still survive but it will not be because of the chemo... they will have been okay anyway.

'What the crap' were my thoughts when hearing this and I really thought at the time that it may not be worth it but I completely understand why my Mum agreed  - because she wanted to de everything she can to save her life and survive this cancer and I am grateful of that.

Hopefully once she is over the chemo she will still feel the same and work hard to change her diet and carry on with the juicing so she will never have to go through this again.

Only 2 more sessions to go...