Regeneration

I have never really thought about how amazing the human body is. I get that pregnancy and childbirth is a miracle, breast feeding too, the fact that your body feeds and makes a baby actually grow! But the fact that our body just cracks on and heals itself is wonderous. That papercut so sore now will be gone in 48 hours. Amazing! My body at the moment is pretty amazing too. It is doing a brilliant job at healing itself. This is why….

My current Chemotherapy regime does this to my body (sorry it's graphic):-

• Reduces membranes in nose resulting in nose bleeds
• Reduces membranes in lungs leading to breathing difficulties 
• Diarrhoea 
• Indigestion and acid reflux
• Total reduction of immune system, called Neutropenia
• Painful nails, may fall off
• Remaining eyelashes and eyebrows disappearing
• Inability to move any part of body at all
• Walking upstairs is like climbing everest
• Complete and total exhaustion 
• Having to be spoon fed
• Symptoms of flu 
• Dry eyes
• Weepy eyes
• Spots where eyelashes were
• Pains in joints and muscles needing powerful painkillers
• Having to self inject for 8 days each time
• Nausea 
• Lips ultra sensitive to heat
• Dry, rough sensitive mouth
• Mouth ulcers
• Dizziness
• No strength
• Headaches

I have pills, potions, remedies and coping strategies for all the above and thank the Lord, they are all temporary and don’t all happen at once. By about day 14 after treatment, they have mostly subsided and my body, incredibly, starts to mend itself. The power of the human body is quite incredible and we don't give it enough credit for what it can do all by itself. Experiencing the stuff above is quite honestly dreadful, horrid, at times unbearable, yet it all stops. My body regenerates. When all this is over I am definitely going to give mine more respect and treat it a little nicer. I am so very very grateful that this is all temporary, I can't begin to understand how those with a chronic illness cope. I am currently in the position of having to poison my body with toxic chemicals on purpose to kill off any lurking cancer cells. It seems so wrong to me now that we poison our bodies quite willingly with tobacco, drugs, alcohol and junk food and dismiss the side effects so lightly. Why don't we care about the damage we are doing? Our poor bodies. Don't think for a moment that I'm going to become a teetotal vegan evangelical nut, oh no, I'm looking forward to a good few glasses of red! But I'm not going to just expect my body to be able to deal with any old crap I throw at it, I need to show it a bit of gratitude. So everything in moderation but a lot more fresh fruit and veg and I might even begin some serious exercise. There, I've said it now, going to have to do it!!!!