Me again! I know this decision is mine really but would like some feedback on what others would do/feel.I am 3 weeks post rads and as mentioned before still quite fatigued.Some days I can walk for longer than others, some days I have to stop and start every ten minutes for breath.Still get low level discomfort from my ex kidney and aches and pains in legs and back from anastroxole.I am doing quite a bit, I think, but standing around makes me tired and quite breathless.Anyway, back in October a friend said about booking tickets for a play in London.I hadn’t even had my op so it all seemed a long way away.She booked the tickets which are £80.There are four of us and my other friend told me she’d paid for mine as a birthday present…lovely of her.Anyway it’s in a fortnight and I really don’t know if I can manage it.Two weeks ago I did a trip to the theatre on my own on a.bus, 2 hours journey had some lunch went the theatre and caught a bus back and I was very tired.Next day I struggled to get out of bed, joints very achey.This trip will involve 100 miles train journey then tubes, lunch, a fair amount of walking around London then a matinee and back trough London on tube, train etc all in one day.I tried this about 8 years ago and was exhausted then! I can’t even lay in the next day on Sunday as.it’s an all day rehearsal for a show at 10 in the morning.I feel so bad, ticket paid for and don’t want my friends to think I’m wimping out.They try but really don’t understand my fatigue.I usually play it down as they don’t understand why I need to get to bed early etc.Does this seem a lot to do at this stage? I know we’re all different but how would you all feel?
Just want to add my friends are not oldy, slow friends 
they’re fast and lively and even walking locally with them they keep having to remember to slow down for me.I try not to mention I’m feeling worn out, they think of me as I was which can be good.sorry for the long post!
Treeze
Well first of all I would not even be able to do that and I have not had a kidney removed, wow that does appear a lot in one day.
Perhaps if you explain to your friends exactly how you are feeling in relation to the fatigue and what it does to you, the fact that it is not something that you can predict, may be you can all work out what is doable on the day and where you might have to make changes so that you can all enjoy yourselves. Sometimes our friends do not realise and it takes us to let them know what we can and cant do now xxxx
Thank you ladybowler.tentatively mentioned it to one of my friends going and she said along the lines of its not yet, you’ll be fine.I think they think it’s similar to sit down for 5 minutes and you’re fine again.thank you.I think it’s a step too far.I have to rest after a trip round Sainsburys!
Thank you Lily.lovely to talk to people who understand.I don’t want to be this person who has to resort to going on and on about side effects and cancer to get my reasoning across.thank you for your kind words.x
Very hard Treeze for people to understand the impact physically and emotionally treatment has on you and understandable you are feeling unsure about the trip.I think you need to be brutally honest about how depleted you are feeling ,Is there one friend you feel would really listen if you explained this.The trip will probably really cheer you up but it needs to be planned around your energy levels so you can enjoy it and your friends need to understand this .
Hi there Treeze,though you have had a lot of feed back already I hope you won’t mind my take on your problem.If you feel this trip is too much for you at the moment please do not feel obliged to go,I know it’s difficult to let your friends down but you must put yourself first.It sounds like a busy full on trip and one a fully fit person would think twice about doing.Be kind to yourself and look forward to a trip maybe a couple of months down the line when you have a bit more energy,your friends will understand.Take care best wishes albalassie.
Thank you everyone…it’s so reassuring to hear…stops me feeling I need to apologize all the time for not being “better yet”.
It takes time and you need to be selfish for a while ,hard when that’s not your usual approach to life .
Hi Treeze and you other well recognised girlies.
Jeez Treeze (sorry I just had to get that one in), have you been thruogh the mill with your kidney and then rads.
Yes, it would or is a heck of a shame to have to let down your friend on such a wonderful and generous pressie. Surely “one” of them will understand??
But, sweetheart, the sooner and more notice you give to bow out, the more chance there’ll be to find someone else to take your place. So, you need to do it right now. Don’t know where you are in the country, but there’s a lot of travelling involved, that’s not the tiring part so much though is it? It’s the traipsing from station to tube to theatre etc.
I just hope they’re understanding Treeze.
Lotsa love to you and hope you keep on doing well in your recovery flower.
Dellywelly xxxx
Giving myself a day off from worrying and stressing today…I’m not allowed to think of bad or sad things all day:)Delly…hope you’re having a good day whatever you’re doing and your message means a lot xx
Thank you …you’re right.It sounds awful and selfish but I was hoping to be stress free and get slowly better over the next few weeks.Now with my dad going downhill so quickly I feel worried and stressed most days.I’m happy to do it, I love him so much but it is telling on me, physically and emotionally.I am a worried and there’s loads to be sorted…carers, doctors etc.I feel like a real moaner!
Jeez-Treeze - Sorry, that’s somehow stuck!! Catchy 'ey. If you don’t mind telling us,may I ask what’s wrong with your Dad?? Think I already asked that same question on another thread.
Aine - I like the sound of your Mum, sounds like my kinda gal.Hope I’m the same at her age !! bit embarrassing and wearing you out for you though.
Hope you are all having a “better” day, if not a good one. Guess it’s all about learning and having to pace yourself, you chemo-cutey and radiant-rad girls !! Not having needed it doesn’t prevent me from sympathising with you all. I used to make a point of lokking into the chemo threads to educate myself better on and about how much you all have to go through.
Lotsa love to you all
Dellywelly xxxxxxx
Hi Treeze,
Came across this thread when I typed in fatigue. I totally understand how you feel and agree with all of the comments. The way I’m trying to cope with it is to only do things on my own terms (tricky I know) so that when I do something new it’s because I’ve decided to not because I feel I should or am on a guilt trip or someone else thinks I should. My daughter bought us tickets for a gig in local town - I want to go but anything else that happens around then will be on hold. Tomorrow I’m going to tell GP that I’m struggling.
x Jak
Loving the jeeze and the squishy hug! my dad was 90 last week and was really active…actually still riding his bike every day! and being really social until he fell at home before Christmas.We’re trying to get his back pain under control and a lot of it is now depression…he says he can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel.There’s so much to find out about care, medication etc and We’re all helping but it’s day to day stuff like washing up shopping etc at the moment and if course, company.I am back and forth as much as I’m able but don’t drive and can’t walk far or carry much.my dad doesn’t k is I had cancer.We just want to keep him at home while it’s possible.Its like a knife in my heart to see how he is right now, struggling just to walk round the bungalow after gardening and shopping until recently.Love this forum! Xx
Hi Treeze,
I’ve been thinking about your dad. I lost mine christmas before last. He had spent the last 40 years too far away to visit often but now I wish I had made more of an effort. It was very difficult for him when he lost his much younger wife to her long hard struggle with cancer; at least he didn’t have to know about me. He too had become housebound (heart and lung disease) after being a walker. All he wanted in the end was to join his wife, even though my young half sister and brother and their children live nearby. Finally he had a stroke which would have been devastating if he had lived as he was so independent. So in the end we were thankful, although heart-broken to lose him, that he didn’t linger. I guess what I’m saying is we can only do so much as children and just be there when they need us most - even if it’s just to sit and listen to the same story you heard yesterday! xx Jak
Thank you.Just to update you at half three in the morning…went to have lunch with my dad yesterday and he was so drowsy we couldn’t wake him.My little grandson didn’t know what was going on.We called my son in law who’s a paramedic and he came and called an ambulance.So dad is in hospital and says he took an overdose to end all the pain…they say he has pneumonia, dehydration, self neglect and is in for a few days.No idea yet what will happen next.Will go to his in the morning to gather some bits and then up the hospital.Shellshocked really at how quickly situations can change.x
Jeeeeez - Treez. What a sudden god awful change of events. The poor man. I’m afraid having lost my bruv to suicide 4 yrs ago, and having also often been down to the exact state myself (until the last 4 months, now “wanting to live”), so many times over the last 10 yrs, I’m afraid I can understand his feelings of hopelessness, and feelings of no longer having anything much to live. And I’m a lot younger and fitter !! I also understand how incredibly difficult it is for you and those others around him, family wise. He’s given up, and he’s at a great age to want to.
I’m wishing you strength in and with all of this.
And I’m also sending you my love. You are very much in my thoughts, Treeze
Delly xxxx
Thank you Delly Ladybowler you’re very understanding.He is muddled now, wanting to go home and We’re not sure what will happen next.If it’s care then he will be so much more confused.So sad to see…he has been my hero and the one I look up to all my life.
Treeze - I can’t tell you how upset, I am right now. I am literally struggling to type because of tears !!
Listen, my darlin girl. One of the most important things for him to know and feel right now, is that he’s loved, and that he has some purpose in and to his life. I’m speaking from my own personal experience. I can feel how VERY much you love and care about him. If he ISN’T BEYOND physical recovery, all of that I’ve mentioned will play a huge part in furthering his recovery and will help to further maintain and prolong his life. If however, he IS beyond physical recovery, well then, to put it straightforwardly - I’m afraid.
But I truely and strongly believe that sometimes, if a person is caught soon enough, the heart and mind, if fed, can certainly “help” a person, if not “cure”. But I believe it can even do THAT. Love itself, is an incredibly POWERFUL, healing thing.
I can’t tell you how much I feel for you right now Treeze. I had to watch my own “HERO” of a fantastically loving, caring, mischievously playful and comical Dad, slowly die over a period of a year and a half from an aggressive terminal cancer, and it broke my heart. BUT, your Dad ISN’T terminal, so there is still some hope for him and you.I certainly HOPE so.
Pleeease keep us in touch with how he and you are, so that we can be here for you in whatever way we can, albeit, frustratingly, only through the ether. It’s taken me a while to type this short message, because your message caused me to have a sob. and I’m having to mop tears from my keyboard. You deeply touched something so close to me in my heart !!
A looooong, warm empathetic and loving tight Delly hug is coming to you right now, with very tender loving thoughts mixed in with it. You got it yet?
Delly xxxxxxxxxxxxx
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