A week in my life (post chemo) | A real talk about body dysmorphia from cancer

foreign [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] so chemo was yesterday it's Saturday morning I think about like 7 30 and it is technically day two for the second infusion so I only have four more to go feeling pretty good uh they give me a steroid during treatment which lasts well last time it lasted until about mid-morning Sunday I'm trying to ride that high and get a few things done I've been up since 3 30 this morning so my sleep patterns are just so weird right now but just riding the wave I am feeling more nauseous this time around starting to get a splitting headache it's like I can tell it's just slowly working its way pretty tired but see a nap on the near Horizon I thought this video I would just give you much of a day by day of the days following chemo as I can and take you into that world a little bit [Music] [Music] Jesus [Music] so it's day technically day three um my eyes are super swollen today I'm like very very bald now and I got my buddy here he is attached at the hip to me I know more than he usually is oh yeah you're my best bud my best guy um I have um I really got a sore throat and I have some like sores on my tub so that's new um [Music] but I'm gonna go because he wants my attention right now he's my priority [Music] um I'm gonna drink my coffee that that hasn't gone away yet I still want my coffee which is amazing yesterday was pretty good I had a lot of energy kind of started crashing around the afternoon and then my mom and I just watched a movie it was her birthday yesterday and had some dinner and and I went to bed about eight and right now it's 4 30. this is pretty standard I've been waking up so early my body is all out of whack last time it was on Sunday afternoon that everything started to hit me so we'll see how it goes today but I wasn't taking Claritin and I wasn't taking Gabapentin for the nerve pain I'm only taking that at night right now though because it makes me sleepy we'll see how today goes and I will be back a little bit later I'm just gonna drink my coffee right now cheers [Music] so we're just gonna have a real conversation as I put away laundry about things that are going on and my body dysmorphia issues are triggered bad right now not only have I lost all my hair but I'm like gaining weight that's really hard for me I've always been really like slim and in really good shape and it worked out I've had like a body that it according to me felt really good right now I feel like I have no control over that you know I'm also being like just bombarded with messaging like I should just be grateful to be alive right now and I am and I'm so grateful to modern medicine and to the fact that I can take these medications and it can relieve me of a lot of pain that once people have to just like suffer through there are side effects from those medications like weight gain like I'm on a steroid when I get I get a steroid at my chemo appointment it's part of the pre-meds steroids make you really inflamed and puffy so like my clothes aren't really fitting me right now and that's really really hard it's like this balance of feeling grateful that all of these options are available to me also honoring the grading process of no longer looking like my old self it's pretty damn hard right now and I'm like grieving that a bit right now and it's gonna be a long time until I get back to a place where I I recognize myself in the mirror and that's just hard that's just part of this process is you lose a lot you gain a lot you gain your life hopefully at the end of this but you're asked to lose a lot too and then you're asked to lose it with a smile because you should go so grateful that you are here and Alive And so there's like a juxtaposition happening where you're feeling all these things at one time and it's confusing and really hard I just I want to touch on that because you know so much there's so much pressure to be like a fighter and to like bite your cancer and to beat your cancer and you know if you're a soldier and all this stuff and that doesn't resonate with me like I'm healing my cancer and I'm trying to heal my body same time I just I'm not myself anymore and I guess I just wish people understood that I mean I I know that everybody's comments are in support and they're very supportive they're like they're wonderful but sometimes it's like it feels like dismissive of my feelings and I feel like I have to hide hide these things in the name of being like a Survivor and strong I don't like that I want to just be able to express everything and feel all of it like I feel grateful and I feel really sad because I'm I'm just so different now the Amanda that entered this Arena will not exit this Arena it will be a different Amanda and so there's a grieving process that comes with that too like when this is over my life will have changed I will not go back to just like doing and being the person that I was I will be different like I'm having to warm up to that idea too and grieve this version of myself that is is is gone now I think we need to put a little more emphasis on that part of this process and give people space and the freedom to discuss it and discuss it openly we are very much asked to hide that part of this journey and I'm not going to that's how I'm feeling right now I'm struggling this morning I'm still writing the steroid High I even did a little workout which was felt good I'm just trying to listen to my body and now I'm putting away all the clothes that I've been avoiding for the last week so it's a big pile but yeah just kind of struggling right now with feeling uncomfortable in my skin and uncomfortable with what life is asking me to be right now so I think it's like 9 30. and I've had my weird little surge of energy I worked on painting the kitchen and now I'm gonna take a nap I have been sleeping most of the afternoon um took a gabapentin and it just kind of knocks me out it's definitely starting to kick in I don't have as much bone pain as I did last time if it's really any right now just kind of living off of pineapple popsicles and sleep I'll see you tomorrow so it's day four post chemo and I'm feeling better than I did yesterday yesterday was a really hard day mentally for me and physically I had like such a steroid High until about noon and then just like crashed um and I slept pretty much most of the day which is really good too um today I woke up it's very groggy and tired I think that's from the Gabapentin that I'm taking um at night and trying to just take it at night for the nerve pain still like antsy and I still am having a hard time just staying still so I have just puts in around and doing little projects here and there my throat is definitely scratchy I'm just trying to listen to my body and go with the flow try to do some things but I don't have a lot of like brain power most of the things I need to do are just kind of like things I can do on autopilot we'll see how the rest of the day goes foreign [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] last night was probably the roughest night so far because I was having a lot of leg pain just like the shooting bolts of light being down my legs and lots in my ankles but it's not even half as bad as it was first round of chemo but I am dealing with more nausea and I just need to eat so peanut butter toast because that's the only thing that really sounds good right now [Music] I am also to the point where I'm needing to take baths like Epsom salt baths as opposed to showers um sorry the lighting is horrible right now it helps with kind of calming the the nerve pain I will take one in the morning and then maybe another one in the afternoon [Music] but yeah yeah I feel like I look like Mr Clean right now [Music] so I was telling my mom this morning that everything is hitting me a little bit later this round the leg pain and neuropathy and I know that there's no set way that this all will happen but I just find it really interesting it's still nowhere near what it was last time which is great I am having like a harder time breathing just like a lot of shortness of breath but I do feel like just kind of working on things around my place so I'm just moving a little bit slower and then I imagine I'll need a nap soon I did get this adorable outfit for my family friend [Music] it's 100 Cashmere by a company called Keynes it feels like the most amazing thing on my skin so I am quite happy with it I am working on my kitchen update this is kind of what I've been doing for the last gosh two months now I'm just kind of like tying up loose ends with other projects and then continuing to work on my laundry room which is basically done but I still want to get a few things and given that I'm not really making any money right now I'm trying to be super responsible but they're like storagey things and then a mirror which I'm looking for on Facebook Marketplace pretty excited with the way that the kitchen's turning out too so let me show you so this area is going to be like a little kitchen nook I'm gonna build a bench over there and get a table and then I added this two-tone in the trim I'm gonna add some shelves up here have a little bit of open shelving and then obviously this is going to take me a while and I'm working on the hallway today this is going to become like a little Butler style Pantry but I'm still working out the concept of what I'm gonna do in here and what how I have to build it and so I want to use materials that I have so I'm trying to kind of like configure that right now today we are going to work on continuing to get the paint off the wall just this one layer and I know that this isn't a lead paint because this is something my mom painted just a few years ago so this wallpaper on the top half and then the bottom half will be the kind of like taupey brown color so that's what I'm gonna work on right now after I ended that last video I pretty much peeled paint for like 20 minutes and then crashed um it's truly amazing to me how petite you get during this time when you're doing treatment I mean somebody had to remind me that not only are the bad cells getting killed the good cells are getting killed as well just the level of exhaustion and fatigue and I'm also really struggling with a lot of nausea today and the only thing that's really helping that is by eating so I'm just like eating all day actually drinking a smoothie right now trying to trying to think about if there's like like what's the difference from each day is yesterday and Sunday afternoon were probably the worst in regards to how I felt today I just feel so tired so everything is like climbing a mountain washing dishes and sweeping the floor and taking off the garbage just lifting the garbage into the main garbage bin out by the garage took so much effort and that is what's really really hard for me is just not feeling like the same version of myself I know that I'm about to turn that corner where I start to feel a little bit more like myself and I can hopefully get back out and work have a little bit more of a social life as much as I can right now around people that I trust are healthy let's see today's Tuesday so this is day five still yeah I'm not really sure what else to share with you like this is just pretty much what my days are like it is a lot of sleeping it's a lot of resting it's a lot of watching TV because I can't really focus on reading right now I can't retain a lot of information in that way nor do I have the attention span I got this cute need a point before my first session I didn't start it because I'm finding that I just sleep during treatment but I might just lay on the couch for a little while and work on that um just to kind of feel like I'm doing something creative I'm I think I'm like struggling the most with just not being able to do the things that I know make me really happy so I think I'm gonna end the video here just because I'm not so sure that tomorrow is going to necessarily be any different I'm kind of doing the same thing every single day so I think the first five days of post chemo tend to be the hardest I think it depends on the person you know everybody is so different for me day three four and five so far have been the most challenging and then Wednesday last cycle I started turning a little bit of a corner and then definitely by Thursday so that's what I'm hoping for this time I'd also love to know from you what you would like to hear more of if you have specific questions you want me to focus on if you'd like to see more of a certain part of my life I can't guarantee that I'll get to it right this moment but I would like to know why you're following me and what you're interested in seeing so I know what to share yeah as always make sure you subscribe like hit the thumbs up do all the things and I will see you next time bye

Channel: Amanda Whitworth

Views: 11,452

Keywords: body dysmorphia, cancer, ovarian cancer, a day in my life, cancer details, chemotherapy, post chemotherapy, Carboplatin, taxol, Lynch syndrome, seattle, seattle Washington, Washington, United States

Id: seUYSt9WrYU

Length: 19min 20sec (1160 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 11 2023