Almost another week gone

Apart from everything else, I'm suffering from a bad conscience. Since arriving back home, I've effectively closed myself off from the outside world, including family and friends. I haven't felt like talking to anyone (difficult anyway because my voice is a cross between a croak and a whisper) and I even feel embarrassed when I see myself in the mirror, never mind having others seeing me. My weight has dropped to less than 65 kilos (just over 10 stone), my hair has thinned to the point where it almost looks comical, my eyes are unfocused and I generally look like a survivor from a concentration camp.

The week has been dominated by sorting out and administering medication three times a day, trying to keep up with the tube feeding regime, racing occasionally to the loo (the diarrhoea problem has now gone on for just over six weeks) and sleeping. Lots of sleeping. Far too much, really. There are so many things that I should really get done, but I keep on putting them off. I don't seem to be able to stay active for more than about an hour at a time and then I'm exhausted again.

Considering that the first operation was on 27th September, I feel like a train that's been parked away on rusty sidings ever since then. Apart from two cycles of chemotherapy and the not very constructive weeks in Mammern and Susenberg, nothing has happened. I have an appointment on Monday morning with the oncologists and a PET-CT on Wednesday. I'm hoping that once they see the condition I'm in, they'll get their fingers out and do something because I'm rapidly running out of patience. The weaker I become, the less likely it is that the second operation will take place soon. I'm just praying that I get a date very soon now and can enter the final phase of treatment with the operation so that I'm on the road to recovery by Christmas.