Oh HELLO! What's this?

I'm making muffins, lemon curd muffins, and I'm adding all the things I'm not supposed to have, dairy....in goes a jug full of full fat milk, I cock my head a little, daring it to say anything akin to a reprimand. I chuck in a heaped spoonfuls of full fat, full cultured yogurt and wait for that little annoying voice of caution and goodness to go off in my head. Normally, when tempted to fall off the 'dairy free/wheat free' trolley (both of these things give me eczema) I get a little niggling, nagging voice in my head warning me, cautioning me, reprimanding me about my diet. Today, I think I have scared that little voice away.

To say I'm in a stinker of a mood is an understatement.

I chuck in a couple of eggs to the mix and beat the crap out of the batter with a whisk, taking out some of my stinker of a mood on the poor cake mix. I spoon mixture into the paper cake cases and it sticks to everything. My language is attrocious as I curse that very cake mix which I should be preparing, so lovingly.

Damn STinKEN Cake Mix. Damn Stupid Cancer. Damn misaligned one and a half boobed chest. Damn short, spikey hair. Damn stubby nails. Damn people staring. Damn everything.

I fling the tin in the oven and stomp to the couch, muttering profanities as I go. The little voice in my head offers a suggestion...perhaps a round of calming yoga might help my mood. I tell the voice in my head to flip off and I flick on an episode of America's Next Top Model, heckling the contestants for the whole show. If they could hear my not very philanthropic remarks I would have a room full of non too friendly wanna be models baying for my blood.

I'm so tired (damn cancer). I want to curl up under the duvet and sleep for a year but its only four thirty, my house mate should be home soon. Where is she, she is flippen well late, and she should be home by now, doesnt she know I have been slaving away in the kitchen all day (ok for twenty minutes only) preparing cake for her (last time I checked, she is not a mind reader and couldn't possibly know that I intended on making cake). But that's not the point. She should be home.

I think about calling my boyfriend and giving out to him for leaving the toilet seat up in my house two mornings ago. I pause and reflect a minute...might my behaviour be a little eratic, nurotic perhaps. NO NO no....not at all, I am entitled to be enraged over the toilet seat and SHOULD call him to complain!

Oh my dear god...I think Im loosing my mind. Did I take a double dose of Tamoxifen this morning or something. I feel fat as well, to top it all off. Fat and bloated and moody, and cranky and I'd love a bar of chocolate...hurry up cakes...bake damn you.

Ughhhh, that girl on American's Next Top Model is so pretty....go and eat something, I shout at the screen. The need to pee takes my attention and drags me away from pounding the tv screen. I stomp upstairs to use the loo, mumbling nasty comments about skinny super model wannabes the whole way.

Oh Hello, What's this?
Two minutes later I'm in slight shock, then begin to dance around the bathroom and hoot with glee (no, I'm not bipolar I promise). I am bloated, cranky, chocolate craving and menstruating.......how can this be even happening, I'm on menopause inducing tablets, I have hot flashes and night sweats. Wait a minute...so now, that my period has started I will be having menopause and menstruation all at the same time.
Huh?

How is that even possible? I don't know. I don't care. I need to go to the shop and buy supplies (in a fit of depression a few months ago I threw out all tampons and towels). As I skip to the shop, saying a friendly hi to all my neighbours, patting the little annoying yappy dog at the end of the street, smiling at the post man in true mary poppins style (all I need is an umbrella and a carpet bag and the scene would be set). I stop at the isle in the shop and wonder...hold on  a second, what does this actually mean? I don't know...I need google...I need to talk to someone who can explain how both these things can be happening at once...I need the INTERNET, wise and all knowing.

I shuffle out of the shop and speed walk home, my mind going ninety miles an hour.
My house mate is home, sniffing around the cakes.

I forget my mission for information and for the first time in my life I am excited to be sharing my menstruation news with someone.
'I got my period.' I yell at her. She is stunned into silence, one hand reaching towards the cooling buns and she takes a minute to digest my strange declaration, the stupid cheshire grin on my face and then the penny drops.
'Oh' she says. Then, 'congraduations, let's celebrate.'

She takes my hand and drags me out the door and down the street, me chattering happily as we head to the ice-cream parlour to get a chocolate fudge sundae to celebrate the return of my period and all the things that may mean or not mean.

I forget the episode of america's next top model, my rain cloud mood and my tiredness. I am menstruating and right now, that is the best news ever.

Hermione, Hagrid and Harry Potter

I think my fall out is complete. I don't have anything left that can fall out, unless I start to spontaneously loose my teeth..... at this stage...nothing would surprise me.

However, for each day that passes, something falls out and something else reappears. The things that you once found annoying, you now herald their return as if they were your very own prodigal son.
Underarm hair, welcome back, I missed you - even though now you will be forever lopsided, one pit waxed, the other, never to be touched by bee poo or blade.
Bet you never knew that.
Bye bye lymphatic system post breast surgery, bye bye being able to shave my right pit.

Eyelashes, woo hoo, come and join the regeneration party. Please this time, when you grow back could you concede to being longer, darker, thicker and anti-clumping when mascara is applied.

Hair, I feel decidedly follicular, I can actually pinch the inch of hair that has grown on my crown. It would be an exaggeration to say that it is a mane of flowing locks, but in comparison to being bald, this is epic.

I've fretted and bit more lower lip over the last few weeks thinking and rethinking about going to a party. I'm most definitely still a midnight mary, needing to be in bed by twelve o clock by the latest and will pay for it the next day by needing at least ten to twelve hours sleep but from time to time it is possible to feel like a normal late-twenty-something and stay up past nine pm.

So yes, a party, a mass gathering of people. All the people who I haven't seen in almost a year, who have talked about me, gossiped about me, pitied me, some perhaps saying prayers for me, whatever floats your boat....a mass gathering, what better way to make a spectacular comeback, let them all have a good gawk at me, get the gossiping over with.

It is something that I would rather engulf myself in, as opposed to a steady drip drip of meetings, so, Saturday night and we are going to a party. My house mate agrees to come with me, I think she can sense the fear in my voice when I speak of it.

I pull every possible dress out of my closet and try them all one, disgarding all of them, try them all on again and finally settle on the least awful. It's tight, black and low cut.....ok, its not really that low cut but it is lowish. I stuff my fake boob in the pocket of my mastectomy bra...a relatively nice piece of underwear, raspberry in colour and I don black leggings, and the tight black excuse for a dress. I check in the mirror to make sure I'm not lopsided and get my housemate to pin me in. Tiny gold safety pins do the trick for all and any wardrobe malfunctions...mine potentially being my fake boob falling out.

I do the makeup, I don't even bother considering the hair, there is nothing to do with it.....it is unDo able. I apply the most outrageous coat of red nail varnish to the butts of my nails, and paint on red where I don't have any nails, to give a good illusion. Earrings next, I need to go through my entire collection, my favourite ones now look like ridiculous stirrups in my ears since my hair is no longer long, so I settle on something a little less  distracting. Then I carefully, every so carefully, apply an equally outrageous shade of red lipstick. My mouth looks like its on fire, it practically pops in the dark. I look like a bad ass punk rocker, turned semi-stripper.

I practice flipping my finger at my reflection in the mirror. I know this is not something that I am going to be able to do at the party, at the risk of offending everyone but my outfit and attitude seems to yell, 'Fuck You' to anyone with half a mind to listen.

I clean a smear of lipstick off my teeth, oppppssss, not great at applying but at least I caught that oversight before arriving at the party. And finally I climb into a pair of high, high heels. Apart from the look of Bambi fear in my eyes, who would know that I am only a couple of weeks post radiotherapy treatment.

In the car I am afraid I'm going to hurl my dinner. I take a minute to compose myself and then there really is no turning back. I plaster a confident smile on my face, yell a silent 'Show Time' and brace myself...........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
ughhhhhhhh...this is worse than I thought. Everyone looks up, some people smile a watery smile, other look away, unsure of what to say, what to do, I chat to my friend and go to speak to the host. He gives me a quick kiss on the cheek and pays me no more attention, for which I am terribly grateful. One girl comes over and touches my arm, rubbing it gently up and down and saying, with a soft, meek expression, 'How are you feeling?' I want to punch her lights out.
Fine, I say, A bit hung over from last night, we went clubbing (categorical lie, but I don't care...Fuck You. Fuck You, Fuck You and your lovely long hair). I turn away and walk to the other side of the room smiling and nodding at people as I go. Ughhh, I want to go home, this is torture but I've only been here 3 minutes and 42 seconds. From the corner of my eye I can see two people turn in my direction, bend their heads together an whisper furiously. I go to get a drink and a friend of a friend of a friend sees me.

Oh Hi, he say.
Hey.
I haven't seen you in ages.
Hmmmm, I murmur.
Would barely have recognised you with your hair.  That's a bit of a drastic change. When did you get it cut?
I stare at him for a minute.
Oh my gosh, this guy is so out of the loop, obviously the rumour mill hadn't alerted him to the fact that I had cancer and my hair had fallen out.
Ummm, well, I was mourning the last of the Harry Potter books and decided, in homage to Hermione, my favourite character, that I would cut my hair like her. (minor detail, its like Emma Watson with a buzz cut and not Hermione but this guy didn't seem to register).
He smiled and nodded his head.
Cool, he says.

Ya...totally cool I think.

I make my way around the room, chatting to a few people, nodding at a few more. Some of them take a double take, unsure, a glazed look seems to pass over their features, then realisation, they know who I am, then double realisation, they know what I had, they look away.

After about a half an  hour people loose interest. Then I am gagging to go home. I'm so tired from smiling and making small talk, my bra is cutting off circulation and my feet are killing me...stupid heels.
At last the night is looking like it might be coming to an end and another guy comes over, smiles and rests his hand on my arm (what is it with all the arm touching!)
'I absolutely love your hair. You look GRRRRReeeeaatt!
Beaming, he turns and heads out into the night, reckoning that his good deed is done for the day.
I am sooo over this party right now. I get my stuff and hobble to the waiting taxi, take me home I croak at the driver, feeling more like Hagrid, except minus the hair than ever before.

Later, snuggled down in my bed I sigh a massive sigh of relief. That's it done then....my return. Phew. I wonder how harry potter handles all these pressing social engagements and image reinventions.

For me, right now, all I can engage with is the lovely sleepy feeling coming over me and my stilleto free pinkies snuggled warmly in my bed.....oh what a party animal I am.......

Downward Facing Dog

*

I got an appointment for my three monthly post-chemo check up. The postman waves in the window at me as he deposits the missile in my letter box. 

Almost daily I sit in the window of the living room at the small bistro table and work on some projects that I am writing* (*can also consist of staring for hours out of the window, procrastinating any form or productivity).  Me and the postman, who I can see from a mile away slowly progressing up our street, dropping mail into my neighbours' mail box, have developed this kind of nodding relationship. He nods at me through the window when he opens the gate, I nod at him after he has posts the letters through the slot in the door, he turns to leave, I push myself up from the table and go collect the post. Almost every day. 

I have never spoken to him and I don't even know his name. 

However, today he has delivered a blast from the past, the immediate past mind you, but the past, nonetheless. 

And there is it, sitting innocently on the mat by the door, a brown envelope stamped with blue ink, the logo of the hospital. My heart sinks a little, for a while I had been able to pretend that the whole thing never happened and then in odd ways, at odd times, I would be reminded. 

I open the envelope, my heart fluttering with trepidation. A check up appointment...really?....so soon?...it seems like only yesterday that I finished my last round of chemo. How can it be three months already.

A couple of days later I do the walk again... the same walk I have done for months and months and months, all the way into the hospital, except this time I don't have cancer, I think. I have stubble instead, a darkening patch of hair, getting marginally longer with each passing day. 

The waiting area in the hospital is packed, every chair is taken and the air is stale with an undertone of apprehension. Most of the people in the room are female and faces turn in my general direction when I walk in, eyes large with expectation and anxiety. When they see my appearance, they all know, and they glance down or up or away and probably say a silent prayer that their test results come back negative. I take a seat and bury myself in a book, avoiding eye contact, hoping that my stay in the hospital will be brief, wondering what it is they will be doing today.

I can see, whenever I look up, patient after patient being called into the rooms along the side of the waiting area. I know these rooms well, they are where they give test results. They are where they give the test results that are good news. Down the other corridor is another story, that's where the box of Kleenex tissues await you. 

For some reason I am mad, I've been waiting for almost an hour, not that long really in the scale of things, but I don't want to be here, I don't want to be in the place where it all started for me, I don't want any more reminders other than the constant inescapable ones that I have and when I finally do get called and the three monthly check up involves the doctor (another one whom I have never met before) asking me how I'm feeling, I want to punch him in the face. 

I feel fine. I felt fine all through this awful situation right up to when the medical profession told me that I had to under go various treatments. I felt fine before being diagnosed and I felt fine in between the hacking (surgery), the poisoning (chemo), the burning (radiotherapy) and I really, really want to shout at him to leave me alone, that the appointment was a waste of time and that it would be more along his line to read my notes in my large file before coming into the room to see me, instead of sitting in the chair reading through them as he asks me questions. The answers to which are clearly state in my file - if he bothered to read it!

Finally, a pointless exchange of questions ensue, he has a look and then tells me I can go and that they will see me in three months time. Is that it? Really? Almost an hour an a half in the waiting room, reimaginings and reciprocation of stares and that's all I get. 

I leave annoyed but relieved, glad that I can get out of the hospital and that I didn't have to have a blood test or any type of injection. 

I decide to visit a friend who is moving house on my way home, to call in for a cup of calming herbal tea, rebalance myself after the hospital trip. When I arrive, she is entrenched in moving boxes, her entire house upended with packing. I offer to give her a hand and she bats me away, shrieking in alarm almost when I pick up the toaster on the counter top to put into one of the boxes, as if the exertion of that movement will break me.  The last time I checked a toaster wasn't exactly very heavy. 

Clearly she is trying to be nice but I have had (past tense hopefully) cancer, I'm not about to break, I'm not made of chocolate and about to insert my hand into the toaster. I start to clean up around the kitchen, talking and wiping down counter tops as I go, I offer to do the dishes and she accepts, thinking I can do minimal damage to myself at the sink. 

There are no washing up gloves, so my hands go in the hot soapy water commando. After two loads of dirty dishes and ten minutes in the water I start to stack kitchen jars and containers into a box. As I talk to her about mundane things I feel a very unpleasant sensation in my hand and I look down, into the box of kitchen wear, my voice squeaks up an octave. 

She looks up at me sharply. 

'What's wrong?'

'Nothing'. I lie. 

She eye balls me across the kitchen and I continue to prattle on, loading a large jar of pasta shells into one of the very many boxes with my left hand. When her back is turned I flick something into the bin and continue to chat for another few minutes. I make an excuse after an appropriate amount of time and head out the door, my right hand jammed firmly into my pocket. 

As soon as I make it down the street, far enough from her house I look down at my hand. First casualty, my medium length red nails have gone from ten to nine and my right thumb is the first to fall victim. It doesn't hurt, it just feels strange, like a gumminess when the dentist removes a tooth, the skin on my finger feels exposed. It's gross, so I shove my hand back into my pocket and resolve to take extra special care of the remaining nails, determined not to loose any more. 

Three days later I have lost three of my nails and my fingers are weirdly patchy, I try to paint red nail polish over the place where my nails should be, but it continually flakes away and looks ridiculous. Once again I feel like little bits of me are falling apart, which in reality is actually happening. 

A couple of days later, fake nail varnish painted over the place where my finger nails should be, I go to yoga class determined to revive my flagging spirit, to take some time to myself and to get some positive vibes going. 

To the mat...with determination. I scuttle onto my bum and sit and wait for class to start. I whip off my socks and get ready for some awkward body positioning and I realise that my red painted toes are missing in places. there are patches of pinkie whiteness and I panic. I'm falling apart on the mat in my yoga class...oh dear god.....will this flaking off of body parts never end........

I feel like the whole room has noticed and then I chastise myself for being ridiculous. This is a tiny thing, a tiny thing to loose but its a reminder nonetheless and still I need to mourn the loss of my painted toe nails. 

I have a panic filled thought and glance around my mat, trying not to draw too much attention to myself. I'm looking to see flashes of bright red, pieces of me potentially littered around my yoga mat but all is clear, I have not actually shedded in the studio. Thankfully. 

I think about the pieces of me which I have shedded...eyelashes, hair, eyebrows, skin, nails, a breast and I think, just as the instructor calls downward facing dog....hurry up regeneration. Hopefully....in another couple of months I will be, practically, a new person. 

* Disclaimer... as much as I would like the image above to be a self image, I'm afraid it's not, my downward facing dog looks a little more like this . 

Cracked....

I'm cracked.

Not broken, just cracked.

Ten days after my last radiotherapy session and I can see my skin begin to flake away.

If you're squeemish, I don't know if you should read on.

Layers of skin began to weep away from under my arm and across my chest, the area becoming runny. Every movement I could feel in excruciating detail. In the mornings I would put a plaster under my armpit to stop the material of my clothes flaking off even more of my skin.

And then one morning, whilst applying bandages I noticed that there was a patch of pink skin, new and shiny.   A line, almost exactly along the band of the radiotherapy heralded the arrival of new skin.

Oh thank god...I am regenerating and the end is almost here.

It took several days, longer than a week, longer perhaps even than two weeks. I tried not to count the days, to concentrate on something else, the lack of hospital appointments, the lack of needles, the lack of my radiotherapy 'bed' and it worked.

Little by little I was filling in the cracks which had appeared in my skin, little by little I was regrowing, renewing.

And boy is it tiring work.

Sleep, sleep...glorious sleep.

So much for thinking that I was done with afternoon naps...no way....a daily necessity.

My hair is growing back slowly, filling in the bald patch and my nails are doing something funky.

So far, I have managed to keep them but I dont think that will last too long. I think the cells that can be discarded after the chemo and after the radiotherapy are being dumped....a slow and arduous 'Man Over Board' moment when my body gets rid of whatever it can and concentrates on renewing.

I may be cracked and a little broken but sometimes out of cracks come good things.

 

Cream of the Crop

Finished! Complete! Done!


Last day of radiotherapy and I bring a big bag of sweetie goodness to the nurses. The doctors get nothing (sorry Doc), I've seen a different one each visit and they invariably need to glance at the chart to remember my name.

The nurses, the same three every morning, 9.20am without fail help me onto the radiotherapy 'bed' (falsly giving the impression that it is somewhere you can relax!), know the name of my cat, know that he has a slight weight issue (ie he likes to stuff his face repeatedly and the concept of being 'full' completely escapes him). They know what book I am reading as they comment on it every morning while I sit in the waiting room, they know that my mum recently came for a visit. They know lots of things about me. They have been there at every step offering encouragement, so on the last day of my radiotherapy treatment, what better way to repay their kindness than a giant bag of cookies, chocolates and sweeties for their 10am tea break (the surest way to a woman's heart is sweeties).

I am unsure today. Unsure if I'm uncomplicatedly happy. I should be happy...last day of treatment, last day having to come into the hospital.  After my last radiotherapy session, I go to see the consultant, a different one than last time (no surprise there), he asks how I'm doing (he means physically as that's all they are concerned with), I tell him fine (I think) and he signs me off.

You will be back in in three months for check up.

Ok, I say. Unsure.

What do I do now? Skip off in to the sunset? Surely I need to book another appointment, schedule another test, note another date for my diary.
But no. That's it.

That's it?
That is SO not it!

I'm on my own now, flying the cancer journey solo...Oh dear god....watch out below!

As I leave the ward the nurse, my favourite one, walks me to the door.
Don't forget to keep moisturising. Your skin will get worse in the next 10-14 days, so keep it moisturised.

Huh? Worse? But I thought that the radiotherapy was over, my skin, pink and all as it was, had survived. Horrah for the tough elephant skin on my chest....it had lasted the five weeks of radiotherapy, no cracking, no chapping, no breakages, granted I spent all day, every day lathering the cream on to it. My cotton t-shirts could practically stand up on their own at the end of the day they were so caked in cream. My bed sheets sometimes had this slimy layer on them (attractive.....ewwwwww).

I had been so careful. Determined even, to make sure that my skin would not crack.

I will not break!

So now she is telling me it gets worse.......
Ah well, never mind. I will cream myself into making sure that it does not get worse. I will, with an iron determination, make sure that radiotherapy stays beaten.

With that determination I make it out of the building in one piece. I make it to my car and I get in. Sit very still in the parking lot and realise that I'm in the same spot.

The same spot in which I parked the very first day. The day the doctor used the words cancer and 96% positive. The day I thought for sure that they had made a mistake. That day, almost eight months ago where I had cried down the phone, in a panic to my sister.

That seems like a lifetime ago.

And it is, that lifetime is long over and I'm in a different life now. I've morphed into something...something, well I'm not so sure what I've changed into.

But I still have to remind myself that I have had cancer and now my treatment, as I know it, is over.

I take myself home, determined not to let the sense of panic overtake me.

Radiotherapy, beware - I will cream myself into health if it's the last thing I do.

woMEN- oh!-Pause...

Why is it not womenopause instead of menopause?

At 28, the menopause and its phraseology is not something that would normally bother me, yet here I am surfing the internet looking for ways and means to quell the constant flash of hot flushes.

I am in the middle of the menopause (well at the start really, but you get my drift).
Tamoxifen has hijacked me, kidnapped me into a scenario that is very bizarre. Already today I have searched a number of websites dedicated solely to this process that happens every woman, but a process that tends to happen at the time when twenty eight as an age is nearly doubled.

Hot Flushes.
Sleepless nights.
Moody moods.
Potential extra tummy rolls.
Osteoporosis.....

Another lists of side effects and things to concern myself with. If I kept all the list of side effects, hazzards and potential bloopers on a piece of paper and tacked them all together, one piece after another, I'd have enough paper to make a substantial roll (loo roll perhaps!).

Anyway hot flushes. They are not my friend. They come at the most inopportune times of course. Sitting in a cafe with my two friends, beaming an unsightly beetroot red, as if I had just ran a very hilly half marathon, the waitress casting unsure glances my direction. Or sitting in the waiting room at the doctors surgery, or worse, on the radiotherapy bed of torture,  as the nurses are politely chit chatting over my prone body. I spark a hot flush, big enough to ignite me and potentially the whole wing of the hospital. Silently I sweat, immovable as the machine buzzes around me and I pray that the lake of sweat gathering at the hollow of my collarbone will have magically disappeared by the time the nurse comes back. Of course it hasn't and she needs to pat me down before drawing on me with her permanent Sharpe marker. When I get up off the bed of torture the paper is stuck to my back in damp patches.

It's a good thing I don't have much modesty or self-conscious genes left after the last eight months of treatment. I shrug my shoulders and say, matter of factly 'Tamoxifen - Hot Flush.' The nurses nod their heads and cluck their sympathies.
I don't have time for sympathies, so I just get redressed and head out into the cool air of the morning. Smash bang into another pesky hot flush.

They happen if Ive drunk too much caffeine, if I eat anything too spicy, going from hot to cold, going from cold to hot, going from slightly warm to any other kind of temperature, going from slightly cold to any other kind of temperature, under any form of stress and of course when I attempt to sleep.

Sleep...OHHHHhhh elusive sleep.....habitually now, most nights around 2am I scorch a sweaty patch into the bed. One of the nurses the other day kindly pointed out, 'whatever will it be like in the summer time?'

Whatever indeed!

Radio T...So help me!

In comparison to hugging the puke bucket that was my constant companion during my chemotherapy, Radiotherapy is like breezy fluffy white clouds on a warm spring day, I would stretch to say that it is almost easy...Almost.
If daily trips to the hospital at 8.30 in the morning every morning, stripping off semi naked and clambering onto a bed that may double as a torture devise is your cup of tea, then you should definitely give it a go.
I'm half way there, thirteen sessions done and the end is actually near. The end of what?
I'm not really sure. Everyone keeps congratulating me that Im almost done but it doesnt feel like it. Yes the treatment will be over but there is the genetics stuff, the reconstruction stuff, the tamoxifen stuff, the check up stuff.  All the stuff.
Just cause the treatment is finished doesn't mean that the big C is gone away and everything is better. Cancer is my constant companion now. I think of things differently, I spend a lot of time on line reading articles, reading the back of food labels, deep breathing, mentally checking my stress levels.
Right now, I spend a lot of time looking down at my chest, whipping off my hand crochetted snood (thanks Mary) and dropping my chin to my chest, having a good aul look. Checking the pinkness of my skin, checking for any cracks, anything that heralds the beginnings of radio t burns, lathering on aqueous cream. So far so good.
The only thing that is red really is me. Holy moley...its hot. Take off beanie hat, take off snood, take off cardigan, deep breaths, sweaty, hot, hot, sweaty, count to twenty in my head, breath, remember to breath - HOT FLUSH.
Every day, every night, any hour, in the middle of doing anything these pesky hot flushes can arrive and totally throw you off. This morning, in radio t, on the machine, chatting to the nurse, half naked I felt this wosh of heat, start in my chest, rush up my neck and ping into my cheeks. Instant sweat, not a slow gradual kind of sweat you get when exercising, instant roasting hot, as if Ive just run ten kilometer race. Im strapped onto the table and cant move (unless I piss off the scarey nurse), so I have to lie there, chatting pleasantly to the nice nurse as she draws x's and o'x on me, wondering if she notices Im melting,  beads of sweat forming on my upper lip, beads of sweat forming on my chest and neck. I feel like a snowman on a tropical island, immobile and particularly useless.
Finally I am released and sheepishly sit up on the table, the paper towels sticking to my sweaty patches.

So today so far:

• Older ladies in the waiting room staring at my newly sprouting hair and bauld patches - check
• Semi-nakedness - check
• Awkward student nurse embarassed by my semi-nakedness and unsure where to look when she sees my scars - check
• Kranky nurse sternly telling me not to move - check
• Complete melting hot flush in middle of treatment - check
• A sweaty retreat from radio therapy suite - check

................. and all before 9.45 am.

Mental pitstop at the bakery for creamy sticky toffee bun and large full fat cappuchino with tripple espresso shots on the way home from hospital - nah. I think I'll have a fruit smoothie and a rice cake with agave instead.... :(

The Sooner I Start, The Sooner I Finish.

Happy Days.
I'm finished my chemo.

Feel like rubbishy rubbish for the week afterwards. The worst I've felt so far on Docetaxol.
My hands are red, the sides of them burning, my feet too and my nails feel like they are peeling off. I don't like picking things up, I don't like putting my hands in water, showering is an unpleasant experience. Worst of all, as I'm writing this post-chemo, I was wrapping Christmas presents with sick hands...unable to do the sticky tape, or hold the scissors properly. However, the week passes, as I knew it would.

I feel better now, the skin on my hands has peeled off, and I wonder if this is what it does to my outsides, what exactly can it be doing to my insides (Sigh). My hair has continued to fall out in little patches, specifically on the top while the rest of it grows back. I have browny-blonde (not grey, thank you very much boyfriend!) hair around all sides of my head and on top, a peppering of locks.... intermittent bald patches. It's grown about an inch and the bits on top stick straight up, giving the effect of total madness, the hair is branching out in all directions, attempting to touch ceiling and walls. I look like a crazy. But I don't care, because its hair baby! finally growing back.

I thought I would have a lovely break post chemo, four weeks in between end of chemo and the beginning of radiotherapy. The consultant informed me that there was a big of a Christmas backlog and that I would probably be seen in the middle of January. So I had every intention of sleeping and eating my way through the holidays, basking in the knowledge that I would not have to be making any trips to hospital any time soon.
The journey home for the hols was long and I stopped off mid way to see a friend and in the car just before I went to meet her I got a lovely phone call from the hospital. Radio therapy starts straight away, I get three days holidays over Christmas and then I'm back in. Every day for five weeks (weekends off). DAMN IT.
A part of me is annoyed not to have a break and another part of me is glad to be getting started. The sooner I start, the sooner I finish.

So, bright and early after Christmas I trundle down to the Cancer Centre and into a new experience, the first of many many new experiences associated with this disease.
I go to the reception and hand over my appointment sheet. Heads swivel, again I'm the youngest in the room by a good twenty years....oh, the joys of youth.

I go and take a seat, the round familiar buzzer in my hand. Not long after Im called to Lab 1, this is to be my lab for the remainder of my treatement, and these nurses and technicians are to be mine too for the next five weeks. I strip off and come over to the bed. Any semblance of decorum or modesty has long been anihilated. I find myself unawares talking about dresses to wear to weddings in the middle of winter with one of the nurses, completely starkers on top, waiting for the bed with strips to be adjusted.

I hop up and make sure my butt is the right side of the speed bump, its like a little rounded bump on the bed and depending on your positioning you have to have your bum on a certain side, next I lie back and make sure my head makes contact with the special head rest, finally I throw back my arms in a salute to abandon, as the nurse positions them in the arm stirrups. If feeling exposed, in more ways than one is the order of the day, then Hallelujah, I'm there.

I, for one moment, am thankful that my hair has not grown back fully, as this woudl be an embarrassing moment of hairy-armpit-itis. Also, I think for a minute how hard it would be if prone to excess body odour. Whilst undergoing radiotherapy, deodorant or strong creams on the torso is a no no. Finally, breast, scars, arm pits, upper arms, tummy, all exposed and spread eagle Im told, quite sternly, by head honcho nurse, NOT TO MOVE!

They mark me up, Sharpe marker at the ready, one green and one black, drawing lines and markers across my chest and under my arms, even ruling me with a freezing cold ruler.

With another stern, Do Not Move Under Any Circumstances, they leave the room telling me that they will be right back. The machine whirls and buzzed around me and I get this crazy urge to push myself off the bed, grab my clothes and do a runner. But I resist. Instead I get a mad itch in my nose and spend the next five minutes trying to concentrate on something else, afraid to move an inch.

Mount Everest....the end is nigh?

Last chemo session, I can't believe I've made it.

I practically skip into the cancer centre...practically, but not actually!
I think about the day ahead, the waiting, the tests, The Chair (with supposed flip back action, remote control television, special call button and attachable light...usually most if not all of these added extra features are broken!), the final session of Docetaxol and the PICC line.....
I anxiously ask the nurse if it is possible to get it removed today. I want it taken out but a little part of me has grown so attached to it, I worry that when they take it out it will just be my poor, skinny, misbehaving veins for the taking, the nurses eyeing them expectantly.... subtext - If i didn't have a fear of needles before, I now have a well established hate of them.
Anyway I'm nervous about getting my PICC out. I remember getting it in....and wow was that an unpleasant experience. I wonder if having it taken out will be as bad.

The consultant sees me. Well that's not exactly true. The consultant's skivvy....a junior doctor... sees me. It's a different one...a different one to all the previous ones who I've seen. Anyone ever get the distinct impression that they are on a conveyor belt? I only got a special appearance from the consultant for the first session of my chemo, the rest of the time I got to see the juniors...dont get me wrong they were all ok but from time to time I would have to remind them of facts from my file....like the fact that I had emergency surgery for an infected implant...when she asked me if my week had been eventful....i count that as pretty eventful. (post script...please read your patients files before administering medical advice...)

Anyway we go through the usual and then she writes me a note for my GP for a perscription for Tamoxifen, not Herceptin...woo hoo, little bit of good news and she sends me on my merry way.
I'm sitting there on the couch and am like...is that it?
Is this it?
Are we done?
Yup, she says, we will see you in three months, don't let the door hit you on the ass on the way out...

Well, she didn't actually say that but as good as....I felt like I was wondering off into the sunset, in the middle of the Gobi desert, naked...and completely unsupervised...just imagine the sunburn you would have the following day.......

Anyway in the waiting room for The Chair I get chatting to this woman with lovely hair, well, a lovely wig that looks like hair, it really suited her. Half way through the conversation she announces that she is feeling very hot and akin to Samantha from Sex and the City, she, mid hot flush, whips off her wig. I smile at her audacity. She tells me all about her diagnosis and her 'cancer journey', as if this thing that we share does away with all social barriers and you suddenly find yourself telling really personal things to other people, mainly women, who have gone before or come after on the steps of the cancer ladder. This special club or group is at times overpowering and empowering. The whole 'journey' feels akin to climbing Mount Everest and when you get to the top, when you think you have done the worst bit, I have to  admit, the descent looks damn scarey too.

Anyway this vivacious lady, with no hair, her wig on her lap, which she strokes periodically, tells me about the time when she started chemo, when her hair fell out and when she went blind. (ya, you read right...when she went blind).

She had decided to do away with the remaining whisps of her hair, denial had sustained her most of the way but when she confronted herself in the mirror there really was no hiding from the fact that her hair was going, going, gone.  So she took matters in to her own hands and shaved the remainder of it off. A few days later, post second chemo treatment, she slipped her hat on to her head at night time and turned off the light for her sleep. The next morning, she woke and in a blaze of panic realised that the second chemo treatment had caused her to go blind. Her heart was in her mouth and loosing the plot, post sleep, she began to shout for her husband,
'I've gone blind, I've gone blind',  she sobbed uncontrollably.

He, in his wisdom, reached across and pulled the hat, which had fallen down over her eyes in the middle of the night, back up to her forehead. Blinking, she looked around her, as if seeing for the first time. Her heart rate slowed down and she smiled sheepishly at her husband.

When she told me that story I couldn't help but laugh and we both had a good giggle before ....The Chair. Maybe that is what its all about, going to a place where youre momentarily blinded, sidetracked but then a little ray of light gets you back on track.

I see the light alright, when the drugs hit my system I felt the haze of sleepiness and impatience to be gone from this place of unwellness. I fall asleep, thankfully, as it got me through the excrutiatingly slow hour where they pump the toxins in.

As a prize for my overall good behaviour at the end, the nurse tells me that I can have my PICC line out. A mixture of excitement and dread washes over me. I get my stuff together and stand up to leave, I wonder if I can remember the way back to the PICC service offices and fear that I would have to ask one of the nurses. I begin to get anxious, imagining the impending discomfort.
The nurse tells me that they do the line for me, there and then. I go back to my seat and sit down and look around me, there are at least ten other people in the room having treatment and Im worried that I will say a bad word when she comes to take it out, what if i start to cry, or bleed all over the place. I feel totally exposed. The nurse approaches, gloves at the ready, I steel myself for the pain.

WHOOOOOosssssssshhhhhh. Five seconds and it's out, no blood splatter, not that much discomfort, just a very strange sensation and it's all over. Bye bye PICC my friend. Thanks for all your help.

Bye bye cancer treatement centre, session six over and done with. Bye bye consultant and treatement nurses. Bye bye free tea and coffee and chocolate biscuit stand. Bye bye kranky receptionist.

If i had the energy I would skip from the place but right now I just want to get home and get to bed and get through the next seven days of discomfort and then, maybe then I will feel like the journey is half over.

Mount Everest, I have you climbed.....partially.