The neuropathy negatively affects life
neuropathy, cancer, fracture, balance disturbance, pain, involuntary movements
CANCER, HYPERSENSITIVITY, COLD, NEUROPATHY
The neuropathy was experienced as constantly causing discomfort and pain. The patients described that they could not coordinate their fingers. They had decreased sensibility for tactile input, and it was difficult to recognize the shape and condition of materials in the way they used before chemotherapy. For example, they could not discriminate between wet and dry materials. Some patients described that their feet seem to being made of wood, a “non-human” material. Their hands were not perceived as being part of their own body anymore. The patients described an increased sensitivity for cold, and a general hypersensitivity. They described that they could not trust their own hands; their fingers were “unreliable.” Suddenly, the fingers made involuntary movements, leading to dropping things during daily activities. Activities such as sewing or driving the car were sometimes not possible to perform. Some patients described that they had not been able to go back to work, not because of the former cancer but because of the neuropathy. One patient described a fallingaccident resulting in a bone fracture. The respondent hypothesized that the falling was a consequence of the balance disturbance combined with decreased sensory perception, since the patient did not recognize climbing on a pet on the floor. Other described being stopped by the police; accidently supposed to be drunk while driving, after walking with poor balance to the car. These situations of dropping things or being out of postural control were described as both impairing and embarrassing. The patients mentioned the complicated paradox that although their neuropathy symptoms constantly induced burden to them, the symptoms were still invisible to others, for example their next-of-kin and the surrounding society. The patients described that they had been forced to change their daily life due to the negative impact of the neuropathy. In their former life, they did not have to think of their own functioning in daily life, they could just live. Nowadays, they had to take the neuropathy symptoms and how they negatively affect daily and occupational life into account constantly.