Toilet Duck

After the second consultation with my surgeon,  where she told me that they were waiting on test results and they knew nothing new (fat lot of good that does when I'm sitting in the chair across from you, hanging on your every word!), I received a bag full of books, booklets, leaflets, print outs. All showing hopeful, smiling people, representative of cancer survivors.

There were books on bookkeeping and cancer, hair care and cancer, telling your child about cancer, your partner and cancer; all sorts of books and printed shapes on stiff paper conveying messages about something awful that people go through the world over but should never, never, never happen to me.  The words would swim on the page in front of me, looping sentences of incomprehension, until I began to feel myself succumb to panic.

And then I gave myself a kick in the butt.

My logical brain took over.

I would make a list.
I like lists. Shopping lists, guest lists, present lists, to-do lists.

So for the first time, I was mentally making an unchartered list, a 'Cancer List'.

I tried in my head to call together all the things I knew about cancer. Conjecture, hearsay and rumour. That's all I had to go on. I didn't have a clue what I was doing. I still don't. But that didn't change the fact of it, I needed to make a list.

Pyjamas - for when I was in hospital. (I couldn't possibly go into hospital in my care bears t-shirt.)
New knickers - the ones I had were either too racy or too tatty for other patients to be exposed to!
Arnica - for perhaps more of a psychological uplift, so that I could feel that I had some control over things.
Baby wipes - for when I would be puking with my chemo.
A bucket from the shop - see above.
Toilet Duck - so i could clean my toilet for - see above.
A coloured mat - so I could put it in the bathroom, something soft and colourful for the times I am going to be spending hugging the toilet bowl and lying on the bathroom floor.

The first thing I did after my 96% news was to mentally make this 'coping list' as well as going out to the shop and spending a small fortune on buying completely organic food, as well as a big bag of hula hoops and a massive tub of ice-cream. The last two purchases were functional in themselves, I need to build up body fat as I will loose a lot of it when I start my treatment, so I tell myself as I tuck into a massive feast of chocolate and vanilla ice-cream.

Oh the joys of the mind, in its feeble attempt to justify our actions.

When I got home, I slowly unpacked my purchases and felt a little bit better, but I had one last thing to do.

I needed to clean my toilet.

I got up close and personal to that bad boy like never before. I scrubbed and scrubbed with an abandon akin to a French courtezan in the middle of an 18th century coronation ball.
I toilet ducked that toilet to within an inch of its life.

Why?

Because in my head, I had visions of me gripping that bowl in the throws of post chemo sickness, waves of which I would have no control over. But by god, if I was going to have to go through this awful experience then at least I can control that one small thing; the cleanliness of my toilet bowl.