The main side effect of the six-month course of chemotherapy was ‘fatigue’. The main side effect of the three-monthly hormone injection is ‘fatigue’. The one and only side effect of the expensive, new-generation, last-chance-saloon anti-prostate cancer drug that I’ve been started on is ‘fatigue’. I’m clapped out.
At night I sleep for 11 hours and wake up tired. Then I have about three hours to spend doing things in an upright position before lunch. After lunch I sleep for another two or three hours. After a long afternoon nap I wake up tired again. But I can read lying down on the bed or the terrace recliner. Then it’s a gin and the crossword, supper, and I’m looking forward to going back to bed for another 11 hours. That’s it.
Even if the pills succeeded in keeping the cancer at bay for a few months or a year – at what price?
Experimentally, I went out the other evening.
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