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 .