Pain, torture, agony.

I haven't checked in for a bit. This is mainly due to the fact I am feel so goddamn awful, the last thing I want to do is blog about it!

Usual Taxtereshit hit on Saturday, as I expected. Bit of bone pain, head feels like someone has filled it full of glue, mouth feels like it is full of stinging nettles. The usual suspects and I can handle them. Really. They pass after 4 days anyway and today I feel more like myself in respect of this stuff.

If only it was the usual suspects.

Remember how my skin flared really badly about 6 weeks ago? It is psoriasis. But now I realise a lot of it is the chemo drugs.

I am bright red. I look like I have suffered chemical burns over about 70% of my body. Indeed, my thighs, top of arms and back are probably 80% covered, with very little clear skin now.

It vibrates with heat. It hums with pain. I can honestly say it is as near to agony as I have ever felt (and I had a natural homebirth of a 10lb baby without drugs!).

Moving hurts. Sitting hurts. Laying down hurts. Being hurts.

My body feels likes a fat sausage in a frying pan, spitting and about to split open.

You can warm your hands on my body...just put them an inch above my skin and feel the heat. And yet I shake with cold now and then. This, I think, is as close to erythroderma as you can get. Mind you, no swelling. I am not quite that bad...

Try sleeping when you feel like this. I haven't slept for more than an hour in one go since the weekend. Being in bed is physical torture. Hell, trying to sit on the loo is agony!

What a mess I am. Really.

I know, from the last cycle, that I probably have another week or so of this. It will calm down, as it did last time. Indeed, the last week of the cycle (when the drugs are out of the system) it was just plain psoriasis. I never thought I would say psoriasis is glorious, but in comparison to this chemo-induced rash, it truly is. Take note, psoriasis sufferers: there is something far, far worse than psoriasis!

I am moisturising hourly; I am taking in plenty of fluids; I am taking in protein via eggs, as my appetite doesn't care for much more (apparently protein loss is part of erythrodermic psoriasis, so imagine it is with this).

I really don't know what else to do. I am not sure a doc could do anymore to be honest. I just have to wait for it to pass...

But I am close to tears most of the time. And for me to admit this is a big deal; I don't really do tears over pain. I have a huge capacity to deal with pain. But this? This is agony. Pure agony.

Who would have thought of all the things that would get me during chemo, it would be my skin? No vomiting, nausea, fatigue, stomach problems. No, a skin rash!

Anyway, no more chemo for me. Even if they were to tell me 'oh look, it is reducing the size of the tumour' I know I cannot go through this skin thing again another time. Really.

If the delete key on my keyboard could delete me and this pain, I would hit in a second....