Nerve damage.

Thighs like wood.

I have had five operations, radiotherapy and chemotherapy. I have been admitted to hospital with Sepsis, and I’ve had plenty of scans too. That means a lot of needles for tests and thinners over the past few months.

I’ve had plenty of cannulas too. Every time something is given intravenously, or for scanning there’s another needle. The heavy doses of radiotherapy, the chemo and infections all have the potential for nerve damage too.

Surgery, especially deep surgery to remove tumours has all kinds of immediate impact on your nerves. Whilst nerves can, and do often grow back, it takes ages!

I had all kinds of numb patches in my thighs and my groin where the nerves took a while to join back up. It does improve bit by bit, but it takes ages. 11 months from my initial surgery, things are *almost* back to normal. 

For some, the feeling will never return where the surgeons have had to be radical with the work they’ve done. It’s just the way it is unfortunately.

Radiotherapy is the surprising kicker. It hits you really deep in your skin and disrupts all kinds of things! After all, that’s its job.  But you’ll also find that it strips all your hair out wherever its been, gives you deep sunburn and confuses all the nerves.

That means hair takes a while to grow back, but has a huge impact on the lymphatic system too. If you’ve had loads of bits removed, it takes a while for all the bits to be able to talk to each other again. Some people get it way worse than me though, and live with the effects of lymphedema every day.

I have suffered from stage 2 lymphedema in my right leg, and I write about it more here.