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.

Bah Christmas-Cancer-Humbug!

Tis the season to be jolly. Mince pies, christmas pudding, chocolates, cakes, buns, biscuits, caramel treats....all sorts of lovliness. Pity I feel like barfing.

December and I feel Scroogie. I'm having a major Scroogie moment where all I want to do is banish Tiny Tim to the cold store and ration his lumps of coal to just one. Bah Humbug!

In the library the other day, I hesitated in taking my hat off - what is it? always with the hair - I was tired and didnt know if I had the energy to expose myself again. Dont worry, the only thing I was exposing was my head but still, its a heralding of my 'condition'. There were two computers across the way being used, one girl, she barely glanced at me. The other, and I have somehow developed a sixth sense about these things contained two ladies, relatively mature, in their mid forties. The hat comes off. I perceive them looking, their heads dip together, I hear them whisper, can periferally see them consult then both look up. Right...I feel particularly evil, so I look up and swivel my head, Damien-style and stare right at them....I see you, I mentally scream..and I know you're talking about me....HOW RUDE!
The older of the two offers a watery pity smile before bowing her head again. The younger lady can't even look at me. I glare...if only it was capable of running a small generator....this glare of mine...I would never need to pay an electricity bill again. BAH HUMBUG to you ladies and your badly permed updo!

I had a mini-pity party yesterday, just a mini one. It lasted for around three minutes. Thankfully, it was short lived. There was a girl in the coffee shop (Oh how we like to beat ourselves with the sticks of other people's perfection), she was gorgeous, I mean totally gorgeous, the most amazing flowing locks of coffee coloured hair, shiny and luscious, a walking advert for L'oreal 'Cause I'm Worth It!'. She had legs which went on forever, a waist the size of a thimble and the face...well, she turned around at the last minute, just when I was sheepishly, in a moment of weakness, reaching for my beanie cap to cover my patchy bald head. It was almost automatic, my tretcherous hand was inching its way, automaton across the table, in a real jesture of betrayal. Anyway, back to this Amazonia goddess, she was lovely, really really lovely, until she turned around and I realised, hey, she is just normal. Like all women. She has her flaws. It made me feel instantaneously better when I realised that she was not a reincarnation of a female Adonis. Shallow I know.

My hair has started to grow back. And its started to fall out. AGAIN! At the same time...how is this even possible? So I have new tufts of growth, like willowy rushes on my hair, interspersed with bald..... so amazingly attractive and a great conversation started, especially with complete strangers in the que at the supermarket. Though it does get a bit weird if they ask to touch it.

I think now that my hair is growing back and that I'm coming to the end of my chemo...yippeeeeee...I feel like Im about to re-embark into the real world again and I'm scared.
I'm not the same person I was six months ago, I can't just pick up the pieces and reboot my life. It will never be the same again. I will never be the same again.

I have the minor detail of radiotherapy to go through and five years of tamoxifen but the completion of the chemo seems to be the milestone, the marker for the road to recovery. Don't get me wrong, I'm setting my Sat Nav to that road and I'm high tailing it onto that track but I wonder what type of person I will be when I get onto that road. I wonder if I have lost a little of myself along the way?

It's hard to explain to someone who hasn't gone through all of this. I mourn the loss of a lot of things and especially the loss of the little bits of me that I won't be able to get back. I don't know if I will ever be able to walk into a room with the same confidence as before, to be able to approach situations the same way. This whole cancer business has left an unsightly mark, in actuality and figuratively on me and I needed a little time to shed a pseudo tear for the once Amazon within me. I will never be that way again, I've turned around in the coffee que so to speak and Ive realised that we are all not so different.

I wish it was over, properly over now, not just the last day of the chemo session but the ten days after where you feel particularly shit. But soon, soon, I will be reaching the end of my Everest climb.


Roll on christmas, some home cooking, some sleep, some mum and dad time and some well deserved rest.

Happy Christmas everyone. C x

The Baby Question

What seems like a million years ago, I was confronted with the decision of choosing between surgery or chemotherapy as the first step on this thing called my cancer journey. The choice was put forward to allow me to decide about babies.
I could start with surgery and have a window of a few weeks to make decisions about harvesting eggs, stimulating oestrogen and doing some further potential damage to my hormones. I was offered an emergency appointment with the fertility clinic as I had decided to go with surgery first, giving me approximately four weeks, back in July/August to try to gain information on this whole unknown area.
Fertility, pregnancy and babies was not something at 28 years of age that I had spent a great deal of time thinking about. So I waited for an appointment, juggling the pros and cons around in my head, soul searching to see if children was something I badly wanted.
Ask me pre-cancer diagnosis my attitude towards children and I would have probably have said something dismissive and  non-committal. Sure I have loads of time to be thinking babies...not until I'm mid-way through my next decade do I need to seriously consider 'The Baby Question'.
I had loads of time, more time than I actually needed to think about this issue. My appointment for sometime in July, arrived and was not timetabled till the end of November, months after my surgery window. So all the potential for egg harvesting etc. was pretty defunct as I am now three quarters way through my chemo and the damage is already done. Tamoxifen here I come. Potential early menopause; no escaping and five years of waiting and seeing.
When I eventually dragged myself to my fertility appointment in November, I had even considered not going and was subsequently in a wicked mood because I was thinking 'whats the point?'. I had resolved myself to the fact that I didn't want babies anyway so it's no big deal and practically pointless even going to the clinic.
But I went anyway.
Rule number one in coming to the clinic... you had to bring your partner. It said so in capital letters on the end of the appointments page...so I think that means that it is capitally important. On my high horse and in a wicked mood, as I already said, I felt totally and illogically slighted. What if I didn't have a partner to bring with me, I muttered in the car, on the drive to the clinic, practically running over a pedestrian or two for good measure.  Not only am I in the one boob, no hair department but now I'm potentially penalised for being single and wishing to go to the fertility clinic.  As a form of protest, I thought about boycotting the whole thing.  I imagined how people who find themselves in this situation and in a moment of desperation much seriously consider kidnapping some unsuspecting man and threatening him with some form of pain if he did not go along with their wicked ploy to deceive their way into the clinic.
Turns out I do have a partner and didn't need to resort to violence or crime, but I still felt in a huff, on behalf of those people.
Though on the day of the appointment I almost did resort to violence...on my partner. Walking in to the clinic he meets someone he knows, a very attractive looking, full haired women (I'm in a very unsightly beanie hat and have very little eyebrows remaining, so not feeling on top of my game in the attractive stakes!). She makes polite conversation and asks if we are going in for a swim (clinic is in a complex which contains a gym, library, coffee shop etc...any of these are plausable reasons to be going in the doors of this establishment would have done).  BUT NO.  In response to her query my boyfriend replies, 'oh, were just going into the clinic'.
Ground...open up... and swallow me! Now she probably thinks I have some kind of STI or strange mental illness, to go with my crazed look and equally crazed choice of head wear. The prospect of lying and saying were going to the coffee shop, or the library to renew membership...anything, anything but that....had not crossed his mind.
Ughhhh.
At least he is a terrible liar. A good characteristic I suppose.

So, after having a tiff at the reception desk, we make our way to the waiting area. About thirty empty chairs and us. I fill out the forms, all fifty million pages of them, and stare out the window. Disgusted at my inability.
Inability at what, I'm not sure, but I feel like a big let down. I don't know why, it's just that at 28, sitting in a fertility clinic is not the top of you're '100 things to do before I die' list.

Two minutes later I find myself in the office of the fertility man, can't pronounce his name, as its long winded and foreign and I'm too grouchy to ask him to repeat it (normally I'm good at that sort of thing). Anyway I take off my hat and hope that that speaks enough for the situation I find myself, being bald and all, but no, I need to go through in detail my diagnosis and treatment.

We talk about hormones, side effects, oestrogen stimulation and then he draws me a diagram. The body clock 35 self destruct diagram. I mean I subconsciously take on these subjects, through conversations with my older friends, clips from radio programmes, extracts from magazines, I know all about the 35 plateau.  things. After 35 years its down hill in terms of egg production.
So he charted out this graph, age on the bottom line, percentage of eggs on the vertical line. Ok, so Im with you Doc. Typical number of eggs and their decline as you approach 35. hmmm I get it, I get it. Then in red pen he draws my line...........Eeekkkkkkkk, really crap line, really really crap line, it goes down, rapidly. and by all accounts post tamoxifen in five years time, I would want to be strapped up to the starting block, having done my warm up and ready to run the baby making race right from the word go.
He mentioned my options and they went like this, stimulate ovaries at risk of messing with oestrogen post tamoxifen if the little feckers are on a go slow. Wait to see naturally if the lights come back on after the extended five year power cut, or take your uterus and plant someone else's fertilised egg in there.
I'm not a prude, I think, and I'm all for medical progression in every field. When he said this I was uncomfortable, someone else's baby in me, not that it would be someone else's baby technically, it would be mine but would it? The room is getting very hot now and I'm beginning to feel uncomfortable. I don't know if I could do that, in fact I don't know if I can do any of that, babies, oestrogen, pushing, melon...ughhhhhh.
We shake hands, I say I'll come back in eight months when I know what drug regime I'm on and we will talk further.

As we leave I pass out through the waiting area. There are three couples sitting there. They all look up as I swing open the revolving doors. Each of them have some kind of soft desperation in their eyes, well, the women anyway, and I understand how hard it is to not be able to do the one thing that you thought you could always do, the one thing that you were made to do, the one thing that others are doing all the time, all around you. For a moment they all look at me and instant pity flashes through their faces and I can literally see it. They think, God, our situation is shite but at least I'm not as bad as her.

I jam my beanie cap back on my head and try not to cry on the drive home. I'm not even sure why, he hadn't told me anything I didn't know already. And I don't even know if I even want children, its something that I've never had strong feelings about.
However...
There is nothing like wanting something you're told you cant have.

Rookie Nurse!

I'm feeling a bit miserable after my chemo session and just want to crawl into bed and sleep for a week to get over the worst of the 'chemo chronics'.  But to top things off, one day after my chemo, I need to have an injection. There is just no escaping pointy sharp needles and discomfort.
So I drag myself out of bed by about 4 in the evening (dont judge me for being still in my pyjamas on these days post chemo - Im lucky that Im even lucid!). I feel like warmed up gruel which has been scraped off the sole of a long distance runner's shoe.
Knock, knock, knock...I limp-drag myself to the door and grunt a welcome.
Brittany is here...she's new. I havent seen her before. The whiteness of her uniform is slightly blinding....Welcome the District Nurse!
Chatter, chatter, chatter, chatter...it's like white noise. She is beaming, smiley, the picture of buxom health. I glare at her from beneath my beanie hat, if I had eyebrows they would be cocked in disdain.....OHhhhhhhhhh for the comfort of my bed.
But I remember my manners and smile semi-politely, leading the way to the front room and the icky injection which Ive just taken out of the fridge, where it was nestled somewhere between the avocados, brussel sprouts, pot of custard and my house mates cherizo sausage.....
I've not had Brittany administer an injection before but Im too tired to care at this stage, so I flop down onto the couch.
She waves her hand around my face, wiggling her fingers in my general direction. Im not really sure what she is at but I finally get the idea....she is showing off her engagement ring.
Im barely conscious and couldnt give a bats ass about her newly engaged status or the long drawn out story of the engagement process. Im more concerned by the fact that she openly admits to me that she is not supposed to be wearing the ring at work. I pucker a little frown and ask a tentative 'why'. The reason being that it is a place for infection and nurses are not allowed to wear jewellery.
Hmmmm, I'm a little nervous at this admission. She is freely telling me she is not supposed to be wearing a ring and Im infection prone...she looms over me....ARGGgghhhhhhh
She whips off the top of a large needle.
I hate needles, she giggles.
Yes love...but Im the one who has to endure it.....
Something tells me she is a newbie and hasn't done many injections. I don't know what quite gave it away but the stabbing action and feeling like a pincushion might have been the sealing evidence in the case of Brittany The Rookie Nurse!
Finally there is silence and she has left. Tomorrow the nurse will be back to change the dressing on my PICC line. Yipee - something to look forward to.

My PICC is my friend.
At the beginning, the prospect of getting it in terrified me. The potential that I would have to limit my movement and curtail my left hand was a bit daunting. The thought of a tube threaded through a vein in my upper arm right down into my chest seemed a bit surreal but then week after week I realised how much I rely on my PICC line to make my chemo treatments easier, to bypass the thin,weak veins in my left arm and to make sure that the chemo drugs do as little damage to my veins as is possible. Now, the PICC is my friend and I cant quite remember what it was like not having it.
In the shower I get to wear a sexy plastic arm bands to keep my line dry and then my functional white bandage, like a widows arm band, on my forearm for day time wearing...truely versatile with any outfit.

The one thing Im paranoid about with my PICC is the 2 centimetre window of movement. It cant come out beyond that two centimetres... (oh yes the picc line can move out of your arm if your not careful and its not taped down within an inch of its life). If it comes out, then they have to go through the whole thing all over again, re-xray, remove, replace......A terrifying fate, as the pain in insertion is not something I would wish lightly on anybody. Sometimes I wake up at night with palpitations over the prospect.

Each week with the regular nurses, Denis, Tracey and Hester, I remind them, 'please be careful of the length', I oversee with total ineptitude the dressing changing, eagle eyed when the measuring tape comes out, breath held for the reading, breath exhaled in a long outpour at the good news. Its not nearly near the 20cm mark yet, so Im safe.

Then BRITTANY happens.

She is being suppervised the next day in changing my PICC dressing. I tell myself not to be silly. Everyone must learn and its important to be supportive. Denis hovers nearby, his nervous energy making me jumpy. She is all chat, her ring removed from her finger, now that her supervisor is here. She chats and chats and chats and chats and chats and chats while putting together her bag of tricks, gloves, dressing, gauze, syringe; all unwrapped and placed on the tray.
Next, the unpeeling of the old dressing. She chats and chats and chats and chats.
ARGghgghghghhhhhhhhh, she has pulled off the stereo strip and i can feel a gerk on the line.
'Denis,' I mentally scream, 'Denis save me.'
 I look down and can see the little scab on the line where it used to be attached to my skin. The distance between scab and arm seems massive, THE LINE HAS MOVED.
The room starts to get very hot, my heart rate increases. I can feel beads of sweat forming on my bald head....who sweats on their head?????
I have to ask Denis to step in and fix this....I cant quite breath properly. thankfully Im already sitting down.
Denis finishes the job and I notice his hands are shaking.
Brittany pipes up that she has had four hours of training but never actually done a PICC dressing change. I want to hit her in nose with my fist but of course refrain.....
The tape measure comes out and I'm praying please please please please
20.2
DAMN IT....
It's over 20.


What Ive been worried about week after week, checking religiously the length of the line, calculating in my head the remaining centimetres before it gets past twenty. Worrying that it has moved, being extra careful in how far I move my arm, in the stretching to the top of the cupboard in the kitchen for the box of cereal, in picking up stuff.
The unthinkable has happened. Its gone over 20, even though I have been so careful. Now Ill have to have it xrayed and probably replaced. I squeeze my eyes shut and try not to think of the discomfort the first time around.
I sigh something akin to relief. Its done now and I dont have to worry about it anymore. I have no control over it.

Thanks Brittany, you're a real stress reliever......... :/

Wayward.......

I get one extra week to recover post surgery and I decide to eat!
Every chemo session I stress about those dreaded scales.
'Up you go now, and we will weigh you.'
Unlike a lot of women out there, each time I step on those blasted scales I'm prayin'.....please let my weight be up, please let it be up!
I don't have a scales in my house, so I can only check every three weeks at the hospital.
For the first three chemo sessions it was going down, down, down!
Post surprise surgery, for that whole week (cause I was feeling a little sorry for myself) I ate all the bad things, pasties, carrot cake (there is carrots in it so it must be healthy!), full fat butter on everything, Indian take away (twice!), buns from the bakery (which as a terrible form of temptation is located across the street from my house...they now know me by name, I go in there so often...BAD!). I had corners for hip bones and I am skinny enough to audition for America's Next Top Model.
No Weight = No Chemo = No Finish Before Christmas :(
Docetaxol Day.....heart thumping, shoulder blades vice tight, STRESSSSSSSSSSSSSSS.
First the scales....up four pounds...wooo hooooooo.....I make a mental note to thank Jenny and Claire, the ladies in the bakery for taking such good care of my sugar craving.
Next, approval from surgeon to go ahead with chemo. Check.
Finally Im staring down the orange black bag of Docetaxol. It looks hazardous. The nurse hooks me up to the  drip and lists off another long list of side effects. I'm not really listening. Its four o'clock and with all the tests  and consultation I have been in the hospital since 9am and have had no snooze. I'm tired and cranky. I imagine what the nurse would do to me if I growled at her, I decide against it. She is, after all, hovering over me with a needle. In my head I think, 'Go AwAy lady...all I want to do is sleep.'
Docetaxol ladies in the treatment room, are identifiable by a range of dark nail varnish on their finger nails. I look down at mine, they are dark red. The colour doesn't suit me but it was the darkest shade I had in my sparse nail polish bag. It's for when your nails fall out....what? My nails will fall out.....bet they didn't write that in the 'Coping with Chemotherapy' handbook.
Supposedly painting the nails keeps the light from getting at them and reduces the chance of them falling out....who knows, Im not really convinced but I, like the other ladies, having no hair, no eyebrows, no eyelashes and no boob wasn't prepared to take the chance and I'm damn well going to paint my nails, even if the colour is rotten.....just so as there is a chance that they won't fall out.
I shift around in the chair...oh look, what does this remote control do....
ARghhghhghhhhhhh, holy J***s, my chair tilts back and flips up a foot rest, sending me rocketing back into a semi-lying position. My boyfriend tries not to laugh at me, but I can see him smirking. I throw him a couple of dagger looks from my eyes, smiling sweetly at the nurse who is beside me.
'The chairs are remote controlled and recline.'
Now she tells me.....
I feel completely uncomfortable and trapped, hooked up to a drip bag, for an hour. Drip, drip, drip, toxic, drip, drip, drip, chemicals, drip, drip, drip, poison, drip, drip, drip....ughhhhhh, how long has it been now, I ask.
Five minutes.
Drip, drip, drip, crossword puzzle, drip, drip, drip.
How long now?
Ten minutes.
Drip, drip, drip, soup and sandwich trolley, drip, drip, drip, no thanks, drip, drip, drip.
How long now?
Fifteen minutes.
Drip, drip, look out the window, drip, drip, so tired, drip, drip, drip, Cancer - I hate you so much, drip, drip.
I sleep.
I wake up with a start.
How....
He cuts me off.
Ten minutes left.
WOOOOoooo HOOOoooo.
Ten minutes. Maybe if I count 60 elephants ten times that will pass it quicker.
Oh, come on, come on, come on, get this f'en thing out of my arm.
Finally, at five o'clock I get to go home. I'm so tired, I practically drag my limbs behind me.
And into bed....aghhhhhhh BED.
Steroids and anti-sickness tablets are consumed. I put the bucket by my bed, a permanent fixture now in my room. I'm prepared for the pukes, a long night of puking and retching and bile and sweat and grossness.
It doesn't come for me this time. I sleep a couple of hours and feel the nausea but take my medication and I make it all the way through to the next day in one, puke free, piece!
Steroids are great, I buzz around the place for two days, cleaning the house, sweeping up the backyard, surviving comfortably on about four hours sleep.
Then the dreaded side effects...the list is long and thankfully I didn't experience all of them.
Aches and pains and no sleep for about a week.
But no puke, Ill take pain over puke any day.
Eight days after my chemo I'm back to some kind of normal. I meet a friend of mine and she invites me to a lecture in the Arts Centre. I consider it and decide to go, it would be nice to get out, to socialise, to feel somewhat normal again, if even for an hour. I consider what to wear, what goes well with dark red nail varnish.
Eventually I chose something simple, grey sweater dress, tights and boots. I slip my new softie fake boob into the supported tank top, pinning it (I have been warned to pin it, so that it doesn't fall out!Eekkkkk).
We meet for a cuppa and a chat and go into the room for the lecture, I see a few curious looks my way, I am bald after all and realise that some people need to stare. I sit down and I am at the end of the table, directly opposite the speaker. Ah well, its always good to have a clear view.
The lecture starts, about 18 people in total, all sitting around an impressive mahogany table, kinda like a boardroom table.
It's an interesting enough discussion but still, I can't help yawning a bit, I'm tired, its almost 9 o'clock, nearly bedtime. I begin to look around the room at the paintings on the wall and I glance down at my hands, which are folded in my lap and the terrible nail colour.
OHHHHHhh NO!
My boob has wondered off...it's pointing at the right wall of the room. I look up, I can't be staring at my chest in the middle of a room full of strangers. Has anyone noticed? I glance down again and sure enough, left boob is pointing straight and centre, as you would expect and right fake boob has somehow managed to work its way slightly up and to the right, it is literally pointing to the wall on my right hand side. The speaker is looking in my general direction, supposedly trying to convey his point with meaningful eye contact....or else he is staring at my misaligned chest....
It suddenly gets very hot and I begin to fidget. Panic. If only, if only...if only I was sitting some place discreet and could  nudge the softie boob back into some normal position with the inside of my arm. Or better still, if I was alone, I could stick my hand down my top and reposition the blasted thing.
I glance at my friend, she hasn't noticed. YET! Oh no... oh no...
I pull on my coat and cross my arms over my chest.  My friend looks at me. I rub my arms a little, mimicking that I'm a bit chilly. I smile, bright and fake.  It's practically tropical in the room, full of 18 strangers but I'll be damned if my wayward boob is going to give me away.
How long left?
Another 30 mins......
At least Ill sweat off the carrot cake I've just eaten.......

Drip, drip (my sweat), drip drip, Cancer - I hate you so much, drip, drip, drip.

Five simple words to ruin your day......

Three chemo sessions down- three to go.
Just when you think you have things sussed....I know not to eat for about twelve hours before my chemo, I know that anti sickness drugs dont work for me for the first 24 hours after my treatment. I know what songs are the best ones to hum in my head when they are pushing the drugs through the syringe. I know how many bucket bags to get ready for the puking sessions, I know what type of food to have pre-prepared in the fridge for the day after. I know how often to space out my steriods and anti sickness medicine, I know when my body is telling me its time to go for a snooze. I know all these things after three sessions and now just to mess with your head, they are going to change the drugs.

Docetaxol.

I'm almost more nervous than when I started with my first round of chemo. I'm terrified that its going to be worse, this Docetaxol. And I don't know if I can take any more 'worse'. Annoying thing is that it doesn't appear like I have a choice.

Anyway, just to keep things exciting, they did get worse even before I sat into the chair for chemo number four.

My traitorous expander decided that it wanted out, it chickened out of Docetaxol and decided that it wasn't having any of it. Antibiotics -round two- didn't seem to make any difference to the enormous swelling and redness, so a trip to the consultant seemed in order.

For my troubles I got lanced, literally and syringed in the boob! Though I have to say, my surgeon is entertaining.

She is a bit of an enigma. At the very first day I thought 'How Rude!', now I know that she is not the 'huggy type', nor is she the 'hold your hand tightly while you cry a little' type. Nor am I, so I get her.
She is the 'no nonsense, we have a job to do, let's kick cancer's butt' type or the 'don't be asking stupid questions about your hair falling out as this is the least of your worries....as you have cancer!' type. I think she rocks.

So thursday morning, I roll into clinic with a honker of a boob and a sinking feeling in my tummy. I know as soon as I show her, she will say five simple, terrifying words, 'IT HAS TO COME OUT!'. ARghhhhhhhhhh - if a person can use up all their shit luck in one go, then surely over the last six months that is me!

Anyway, I flash her a glimpse of traitor boob and of course she makes a distinctly negative kind of sucking noise with her teeth and utters words, not the words I would have expected. 'We will just take a look'....

You know when you sit in the dentist's chair and he is looming over you with a needle and smiling menacingly behind a soft baby blue mask, and he says these stupid words 'the injects is the worst bit, everything else is plain sailing'. The injection stings and you relax a bit but  then, as he digs around in your mouth a few minutes later, ripping out old fillings or scraping out cavities and you, in your prone state are silently cursing him for the dirty rotten liar he is- because everything after the injection was downhill and only got worse!

So, my surgeon wants to take a look...is that good?...is that bad? will the expander stay? She barks at the nurse who is timidly standing by the door, her eyes darting left, right and centre, a shadow of petrification hanging over her. If she could, I know she would run from the room.

'Get a tray set up for me'. (order number one)
She legs it out of the room and comes crashing back in a moment later, implements rattling, packages of gauze and dressing rolling around the top of the trolley.
My surgeon comes back and curses, actually uses a bad word...I am stunned!
'Get half this shit off the trolley and set it up properly!'

Oh dear, I think my failed expander is causing my surgeon to have a bad day, as if its rejection is a personal affrontation to her skill. I understand, I take it a a personal affrontation to my body, the expander's weak will and wish to abandon me.

Baby nurse is replaced by older, wiser and more thick skinned substitute. Surgeon is mumbling what I imagine are profanities under her breath.  I am lying there on the bed trying so hard not to laugh...my consultant cursing, the nurses scurrying.

Two minutes later, laughing is the last thing on my mind.

She comes in and says, 'Im going to inject you, its the worst bit and everything else after is ok', ha ha ha...oh ya, learn that from the dentist did you, I don't believe you, this bit is going to be easy.
Two lidocain injections later and I find I'm the one who is using all the bad language, a fine flowing string of bad words tumble from my lips. But its ok cause I know she doesnt mind, its my way of not crying and I think she gets that.

A little digging around and the prognosis is the same, its going to have to come out. Those five words. Damnation!

So when is surgery...next week, next monday perhaps, I'd like to go see my parents at the weekend, so perhaps we could schedule in something for Monday or Tuesday...ha ha ha...fat chance!

Emergency surgery list this evening! Panic - operation today. I need to pack, I don't have any clothes with me, I'm supposed to be meeting friends later, my boyfriend is in Austria with work, I don't have anyone to bring me to the hospital, my house mate is not home, what am I going to do, arghhhhhhhhhhhh panic!

I go quickly home to pack a bag and come back to the hospital, I am distraught all the way home. Three whole months of pain and discomfort, saline expansion sessions, painful bra wearing, redness, antibiotics, no sleeping on my tummy and what...all for nothing. STUPID EXPANDER. Im back to square one, almost minus square one.

I go home and pack a bag alone, I organise my things and make my way back to hospital alone, I sit on the emergency bed and wait, alone. And I go to surgery at half eight at night but Im not alone. My surgeon is there and I know she will look after me, I know that she has been working since early morning and has seen and helped many people that day, I know that she has probably missed dinner in trying to organise a slot for me in the emergency surgery list and I know that she is on my side and will do her very best to look after me.

I know that if any one says anything bad about her, they had better answer to me.

The next couple of days after the surgery I wonder, how does she do it? how does she manage to get such a big object out such a small opening, my new scar along the base of my one time breast, a perfect two inch line, delicate and discrete, as if nothing had ever happened.

Narrative Nipples and Extruding Expanders (this could get messy!)

How to Kill a Living Thing

Neglect it
Criticise it to its face
Say how it kills the light
Traps all the rubbish
Bores you with its green

Continually
Harden your heart
Then
Cut it down close
To the root as possible

Forget it
For a week or a month
Return with an axe
Split it with one blow
Insert a stone

To keep the wound wide open.

              Eibhlin Nic Eochaidh.




I really like that poem, especially the last two lines. I understand what the poet is trying to say, like picking at a scab that is almost healed over. Not that I am healed yet, still a long way to go but you sometimes can't help but poke.

Three chemo sessions down, three to go. As my Dad keeps saying, you're half way there, at the top now, its all down hill from here, except that's not what it feels like. Yes, getting to the third session feels like a gigantic climbing spree, laden with bags of cement and wading through mud to get to the top of an almost impossible peak and now that I'm at the top, I somehow think that the next three sessions, the down hill bit, should be easier. But they will not be any easier, they will, each in its own right be as difficult as if never before experienced, when you find yourself reverting back to crawling on your hands and knees, an invertebrate all over again.

I think its the feeling of being cheated. The chemo, in three week cycles, the first week is like hell, a slow puking, constantly painful torture, the next week is hazy and sleepy and tired but less torturous, you feel by the end of the second week almost like your old self again. The third week you find yourself offering to cook dinner, go for a walk, embrace a physical activity and you practically skip down the street, feeling, apart from the shine off your bald head, like a normal person. Then, right when you're feeling on top of things, right when you feel like your proverbial mountain has been climbed and claimed, you get stuck...stuck with a big fat juicy needle full of crap and you revert right back to start all over again.

I felt a bit broken the last session, like I couldn't go on, not that you have a choice because life does that annoying habit, continues on, and like the poet, it returns with an axe and there are many stones stuck in the wound keeping it open but you have to keep going, going, going, till you reach the top and start descending. Eventually, you will get to rest and it will be over and you will look back and wonder how you did it.

Today I thought...I am so over this cancer business. I'm so over having no hair, so over puking, so over feeling tired all the time, I am so TOTALLY OVER this s**t! I want my hair to grow back and to start feeling energetic again, to be able to go for a run or a bike ride, spend a whole day awake and not have to go for a nap in the middle of a day like a terrible two year old! Mentally, I might be over this shiznit but unfortunately physically and medically I am not even near the end yet.  And so I ate three muffins. Not at the same time....throughout the space of a couple of hours. They were home made and healthy and they did make me feel a little better.

Also, narrative nipple, well not in the plural, in the singular, is brilliant. www.narrativenipple.com - not that I am biased but its a great space for people to express themselves and listen to other people and to get it all off their chest, regardless of the size, shape or symmetry of that chest.

Speaking of which, my boob is misbehaving badly. My expander, with a life of its own, doesn't like its new home and in a moment of low white blood cells has decided that it wants to move....to move out...Now, naturally I'm not having any of that sort of business, so I have chastised it with horse tranquillizer antibiotics in the hopes that it will change its mind and decide to stay......watch this space for future potential unwanted surgery....oh the joys...never a dull moment!

I am Woman, hear me Roar (Squeak!)

Sitting in chairs last week, waiting for my chemo, the only bald (female) person in the room and a smiley woman in her mid forties comes over.  She has dark grey hair, short and a little spiky, funky in a way, with retro sixties glasses perched resolutely on her nose.
She kneels down beside my chair and I can practically hear all ears hone in on our conversation. This is a very polite waiting area, no body is having a full blown conversation, all conversations are clipped, hushed tones if its something private, soft tones if your talking about the weather to your companion in an effort to make the time pass. Everyone seems sombre and delicately respectful of whispers.
I notice the ladies across from me stop their hushed conversation and a gentleman two spaces away turns his head from his newspaper, clearly, not much scandal happens in the chemo waiting room, so all ears are on us.
'You and I have the best hair cuts in the room', she says, smiling proudly down at me (I could of course argue the point with her in a very convincing manner but I just smile weakly, unsure). 'Well done,' she continues and rubs my arm in an over familiar manner, seemingly congratulating me on being bald.  I can feel my face begin to get hot. She goes back to her seat and sits down and flashes me a two thumbs up. I cringe internally. As if it wasn't bad enough that I felt like the whole room was staring at me, now they actually are. I burrow my head back in to the useless magazine I was reading and I curse chemo for the hundredth time.

Later, some time later, I am tryng to chose something nice to wear for a coffee date with a friend who I hadn't seen in a while. I wanted to deflect from the fact that I don't have any hair, so I chose a bright red and white jumper, stripy, nautical....very fashionable. I put it on and look in the mirror. Ughhhh, my boobs don't match, one is big, one is small, they are also levelly uneven, one slightly up a bit, one slightly down a bit. I open my drawer and pull out the bolder holder that I bought for post surgery, it is plain and ugly and almost utilitarian. I sigh and think of all the lovely bras I have in my wardrobe. But this thing, which I hold in my hand, well, it does exactly what it says on the tin, it holds everything in place. So, awkwardly I put it on, having great difficulty in doing up the back of it, as my post surgery reach is not the best. Several struggling seconds later I am dressed, kinda.
I look in the mirror, red and white striped jumper, nautical....very fashionable,  and my hat, which I need to keep my head warm, it woolly and has a big bobbly bit on top...I look like Where's Wally! ughhhhhhhhh........help....I need a post cancer diagnosis, chemo treatment makeover.....I cant fathom what could be done to make me look any better. At least I still have my eye brows for this session, I suppose you have to always find something to be thankful for.

I eye my massive collection of shoes....like all women, I have certain weaknesses, not many mind you...but when I have a weakness, I have it bad and shoes and I love each other, they call out to me sometimes when I'm walking down the street from the shop windows, saying...'Take me home, nice lady, I need a new home.' To which of course I can't resist. So, looking at that pile of high heels, I feel distaste. I couldn't be bothered with heels, who needs discomfort on top of already feeling uncomfortable, head is cold or itchy, boob is sore or misbehaving, chemo is making you feel nauseous or tired; the last thing you want to do is put on a pair of friggen high heels...least of all because you cant fit into any of your blasted clothes cause your either skinny as or bloated like a whale, so can never find anything nice to wear anyway. I give up and opt for a pair of jeans, which hang around my ass like those rappers you see on tv and I feel about seventy, giving out about the youth of today! I chose a pair of converse, flat, ugly, scruffy but ohhhh so comfortable shoes.

Later, in the cafe, after coffee and cake I start to fidget. I think my friend thinks I might have cooties, I excuse myself and go to the bathroom. Bolder holder is cutting off circulation to certain body parts and is beginning to dig an unsightly rim of red into my skin. Off...Off...DAmN contraption! I wriggle out of the blasted thing in the bathroom of the coffee shop....ahhhhhhhh, instant relief, only I never brought my handbag with me...so now I have bolder hold in my hand and no where to put it....I stuff it into the waste band of my jeans and hope that I make it back to our table in three easy strides without it floppen out onto the floor of the cafe.....MORTO!
I make it and quietly put it in to my handbag, whispering to my friend. She howls with laughter and causes everyone to turn around and stare at our table, as if things weren't bad enough. I glow beetroot red and we leave the cafe, me with sheepish abandon.

PICC line and would not travel, so here I was in the middle of my bedroom, grunting as if I was moving a piano up six flights of stairs solo, my supposed trusty vest top half wrapped around my head, my arms flung up in mock surrender and there is a knock on the door....Oh.....you have got to be kidding me. I had a mental image of me falling over, unable to get out of the vice grip of the vest top, alone in my bedroom, undiscovered for days on end...bit dramatic I know! Another knock on the door....oh for flip sake. I tugged and I pulled and I shuffled till I got one side undone and then awkwardly got out of the top, flung on a hoody and limped downstairs, expecting the boiler man. I opened the door and there was no body there....after all that effort!

So now, I've no hair, I have lost the will to live when it comes to wearing bras, I have abandoned the high heels, co-ordinating accessories for non existent outfits seems pointless, I feel about as feminine as a yorkie bar. I've not had a period in months, I have started reading literature on early menopause and I wonder is pickling my beetroot a good idea so early on in the year.....arghhhhh, I feel a million years old and completely disconnected from everything.

This is part of what happens on the cancer journey, you are stripped of all the things that you associate with being feminine. The prospect of being able to reproduce, the things which define you as a women in society...breasts, hair, heels, sexiness. Its all gone and is replaced, for me, with dressings over wounds, comfort over style, warmth over fashion, practicality over frivolity, survival over sexy. I'm still female, I'm still a woman but feel removed from it all, outside the conventions. As I sit on the couch watching reruns of Americas next top model I get a bit cross with society and how it has boxed us all, whether we like it or not, in to neat categories and I almost feel glad that I have no hair, glad that in a crowd peoples gaze drifts over me, discounting me, as insignificant, unworthy of notice, I feel glad...Almost.....almost.