Not my best day. Cancer chatter came back. Must be grateful as I haven’t had this for almost a week now. Senses heightened by a friend of mine who is having her operation tomorrow. I have told you about her already – the ex-student now friend. I honestly ache for her. She may be feeling terrified now – or somewhere very close to that – I would love to look into her eyes and sob her tears with her.
Then I realize I am going to be poorly. How much or how little is a mystery. But punched in the gut by the cancer chatter sees me lying in a pool of vomit crying out to be ended. I have gone from “I’m going to be really OK”, to “Hopefully I’m going to be OK”. I can taste the difference in the thinking I’m taking part in and the words as they leave my mouth. It is shit how quickly the equilibrium shifts and it is not nice.
I have had a long telephone call tonight which helped me a lot. A colleague who is in remission took an hour out of her evening to tell me “Cancer is a f***er and we need to stand together and kick it’s head in”. I’m not sure if ‘comforting’ covers how I am feeling. It’s more than that – it stretches wider. She gets breast cancer – she gets the chemo – and she did a very good job of getting the garbled messy stuff I said. She swears like me. I like an unfiltered approach to this disease. It normalizes it. It makes me feel human.
Within 4 hours of her chemo she fell ill. Shit. That is horrendous to hear. Is it that bad? She was unwell leading up to this – really unwell – so maybe that was a contributory factor. But I can hear in her tone she found the whole experience just bloody awful. How will I feel on Wednesday at 6pm? Is tomorrow really going to be the last day this year I’m going to feel well? Do I change all of a sudden? Will I cope? Will I even want to?
18 years ago today I had my first date with my husband. We have always recognized 08/06 and celebrated the day somehow. I came to bed to a card under the quilt. No fanfares and fond memories this year. No fizz being drunk and no something beginning with ‘f’ being contemplated. Another ‘f’word sits in it’s place tonight – fear. The unknown and we face it together. He’s stood with me as I stand at the edge of a cliff. Cancer took me there – chemo will push me off the edge on Wednesday. Then I’ll take my husband with me. The really terrifying thing as I write this to you – and you may well have felt the same – is neither of us now can do anything to walk back from the edge. We can’t even turn around. We are going to fall and we have no idea where we are going to land. Happy anniversary my dearest friend. I am so sorry.
This picture was taken Christmas day 2002 – the day we got engaged. I was 6 months pregnant with our first daughter.
