The Minds Eye!!

You will have to excuse me before i head off on this rant as to be honest I'm not quite too sure where it will lead, but what the heck, life's too short and all that, so here i go.

I've noticed lately that the blog has sort of changed direction, somewhat to do with the what might be seen as positive or negative direction my illness and subsequent treatments and symptoms has taken. Other reasons could be that My friends Peter and Elsbeth's blogs have both featured thoughts on reflection etc and that has started me thinking about what i have been through and more important i guess what sort of person i have become as a result of all this. So this i hope will turn out to be a glimmer of the type of thoughts that i and i guess many others going though similar issues have to deal with, which sadly no one warns you about and you won't find it in any text book. Now i know that i have and still do try and mention the physical aspects/problems i am having to deal with so repeating them all would be a pretty useless exercise. It's more the psychological, emotional thoughts i want to try and get to the bottom of.

I realize that this blog may well go on and on and on and on, a bit like Mrs Doyle again, and as such i may just cut it off in it's prime and return at a later stage to catch up.

So Here Goes!!!!!

i guess it all starts with the initial bombshell. No matter how much you glam it up or play it down for that matter, when you are told you have a critical illness such as in my case Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia it is very much a jaw dropping experience. My first reaction was “Oh My God I'm Gonna Die” which sadly the doctor responsible for giving me this great news was not doing or saying anything to the contrary to ease my worries. This then was followed with all sorts of emotional tidal waves. There is the old favorites “Why Me” and “What Have I Done To Deserve This”, which even at times rear their ugly heads today still. There appears to be a sort of thread that runs through all these emotions and that is they are nearly all connected to the feeling of loss/grief and guilt too, which i hope will become clearer later. I found by the very nature of the treatment available to me my independence was being stripped almost right from the start which brings with it a lot of anger i guess you can call it. I, depending how you look at it i guess, was pretty much off on another planet due to a combination of the Illness taking hold and the huge quantities of drugs being pumped into every available orifices and some which were previously unavailable too. OUCH!!! so i was spared some of the initial seriousness. I guess though the seeds were even then being planted that are the emotions i am having to deal with today. Where i think the Loss feeling are there are things like losing Independence. It just tends to start off small with even silly little things like because you might have mouth ulcers or similar, something i know Peter is dealing with at the moment because of the GVHD you cant eat anything comfortably unless its stuff like soup or ice cream, when all you want is nice big juicy bacon sarnie, but the point is YOU DO NOT HAVE THE CHOICE!!! it has been taken away from you by this bloody alien called Leukaemia. This has continued as you can imagine throughout this past 3 years 5 months and 4 days but who's counting?? to varying degree's. Slowly throughout i suppose it has become more long term loss that has become just part of life. General feelings that this illness has slowly and systematically robbed me of pretty much most of my independence with things like, being as my mobility sucks to put it mildly i now have to rely on someone else to help me with basics of life such as dressing and washing, even thinking at times which is scary. The point is that all these things, and i cant emphasize it more strongly have been “TAKEN AWAY” and not actually “GIVEN UP” by me. I think this has been and still is the one emotion that i just have not been able to deal with successfully and as such does cause some problems occasionally with depression etc. i just find it soo hard to come to terms with losing yet more to this bloody thing as to be honest i am scraping the barrel as to what independence i do have left for it to take away from me. Almost all activities if possible at all now that i used to, much like everyone else just take for granted i now have to rely on someone else to either help me to do it or do it for me. I guess i sometimes see it as stripping away my identity too. In that i mean, i have become a “Case” and often a “Number” or if h'm lucky maybe “Both” and no longer John, which as you would think brings with it a whole new load of emotional happenings to add to the party. I have often said that i do not actually recognize myself anymore physically as due to lots of reasons my appearance has changed beyond belief since this started. If i were to put up 2 photo's, sort of a before and after thing you will agree with me that it is not the same person at all. I did for quite some time use this as an opportunity to kind of re-invent myself. Being able to truly i guess make a fresh start. In reality though you are who you are by what you have been through in life and all those memories are as much a part of you as your skin is. So yes you may be able to fool yourself and everyone else for that matter into believing you are someone new but deep down inside you are still the same person you have always been just living a lie i guess. Even if, as i do very often wish i could change the past, what effect would it have on me and would i really want to do it, now I've seen the person i have become now?? A tricky question i think, one which i don't think i could really answer comfortably.

Right I'm going to have a rest for now but i will try and return to this at sometime soon to carry on a little as i think there are still some emotions that i have and am experiencing which haven't got a mention yet.

See Ya!!