Part Thirty-Eight: Stress

            It’s been a rough week.

            I am stressed and worn out over the mudslinging of the 2016 presidential campaign.  I am stressed and worn out over my son’s ongoing struggles.  I am stressed and worn out over a week’s worth of peripheral neuropathy.

            So, since this is my breast cancer blog, I’ll skip the first two stressors and talk about the chemo-induced neuropathy.

            Now, to explain, I have had some neuropathy on and off for twenty years now:  ulnar nerve neuropathy, occasional shooting pains in my feet, the odd muscle firing in some odd spot once in a while, numbness and tingling sometimes.  But what I’ve experienced this past week goes far beyond anything I’ve experienced before.  It doesn’t stop; it merely varies in intensity.  It’s whole body.  It’s messing with my balance and my coordination.  Today, as I drove to meet some friends for lunch, I realized I had to pay attention to my braking to get it right: otherwise, I hit the brakes too hard.

            Yesterday, when I described all these symptoms to my nurse practitioner before having chemo, she was very concerned.  She cut my Taxol dosage by 25% and said that if that doesn’t help, we might have to stop chemo early and go straight to surgery.  That’s not optimal as far as cancer treatment goes, but neither is permanent, severe neuropathy.

            Yes, this is hard.  I am discouraged.  I’m not feeling particularly peaceful at the moment.  My ears are buzzing with tinnitus.  My head, arms, hands, fingers, body, legs, feet, and toes are tingling.  If you are a praying person, please pray for me to re-focus back on the God who is my strength and song.