Feeling down...

Having another crap day today. It has been like living in a minefield for the past couple of weeks. Sharon is really starting to feel the side effects from the Radio and Chemotherapy, and on top of it all, she is suffering from regular, rapid mood swings, making her unreasonable, irrational and almost impossible to live with.

One of the Macmillan team advised me to use a "walk away" strategy to try to gently encourage Sharon to deal with her emotions more constructively, and to allow me an escape from the ranting and raving when Sharon turns into GrouchyPants. Walking away, seems to make sense, try to diffuse the situation, and deny the opportunity to argue. It's VERY hard to do though, I can tell you. She is getting increasingly pissed of with me going out for an hour at least twice a day, and I am getting really bored with walking to my best friends house and unloading on them!

You hear a lot about the side effects or Chemo and Radiotherapy - nausea, vomitting, hairloss, infertility etc, but there are also the emotional and mental side effects - Depression, Feeling low, anger, insomnia or broken sleep patterns.

It's hard to explain, but if you can imagine what it's like living with a woman who has recently had a cancer diagnosis, suffering the side effects from both Radiotherapy and Chemotherapy, is in pain and finding it nearly impossible to get comfortable, and is also going through menopause caused by the treatment, and has extreme financial pressures due to the illnes as well, and I think you might get the general idea - Dealing with any one of these would be hard going - but ALL at once, I think she is at her wits end at the moment. I just wish I could help.