I have googled what happens at an oncologist appointment. It turned out to be a total waste of time. Nothing I read came close to the feeling I had when being told I was going to be having 8 cycles of chemotherapy starting next Wednesday. Nothing will ever convey the sheer panic I felt sat in a room at the hospital next to my husband looking at a screen with a dark haired man looking back at his camera – through me – as he spent an hour relaying information that I couldn’t fully comprehend. Now I am not a dull woman. I am quite bright and can hold my own in terms of intelligence but as I sit here as he guides me through the next 12 months of my life I am on a parallel universe. I am experiencing another version of my own reality and it involves ‘Systematic anti-cancer therapy’. I do listen. I really do. I want to know everything that is going to happen to me. But try as I might I cannot keep a clear objective mind. I lurch from one emotional disturbance to another. I worry he thinks I am stupid as I am pretty sure whatever is happening in my mind is playing out in full on my face.
I came here ready to hear this: lumpectomy in a few weeks, (I was going to ask for a double mastectomy) a few sessions of chemo a week, where I won’t lose my hair, and back to work in September. Simples.
Nope. Eight sessions of chemo, one every three weeks, then a lumpectomy at the end of that, followed by radiotherapy. Will definitely loose your hair in the next three weeks. Possible medication for the next five years. My cancer is chemo sensitive so he is expecting it to shrink the tumor, but the biggest message of the day was that the chemo is going in first to make sure ‘it is doing it’s job’, and to target any other cells that have broken off and are lying dormant somewhere. TO STOP RECURRENCE IN THE FUTURE. Now I am confused. It wasn’t in my lymph nodes on first biopsy. I am still waiting for the second lymph node biopsy to come back. AND it’s not showing anywhere else – my CT was clear?! What on earth does he mean? This is crazy. I do query this and he does answer – several times. Poor man.
I am having chemotherapy because it circulates throughout the body in the bloodstream. So it can treat cancer almost anywhere in the body. Chemotherapy is a systemic treatment. Surgery only removes the cancer from the area it is in the body. And radiotherapy only treats the area of the body it is aimed at. Having chemotherapy before other treatments in this way is called neoadjuvant treatment. Keeping up with me? My chemo is called AC-Docetaxel. My patient agreement and consent form is 5 pages long. Two of these pages cover the ‘significant, unavoidable or frequently recurring risks’. He explains them all to me in good detail but still a fog of f*** sits in the way of me and the screen. I obsess on two things – being sick and losing my hair. I have a very real fear of vomiting. This comes from my childhood where my alcoholic uncle would come home from the pub EVERY NIGHT, (earlier on a Saturday as he started at lunch time) and then go upstairs to the bathroom and vomit out the contents of his beer swilled stomach. My headboard was next to the bathroom wall. I heard every last wrench as he ejected the foul smelling liquid out of his body. This went on for years. I cannot remember the last time I was actually sick. I spare him the details, but share enough for him to know I need him to take this concern seriously. He does. He does an admirable job of being honest with me – explaining that I may fair well with the chemo given my age, health, fitness levels and attitude. They can treat some side effects and I may not believe this now, but I will cope and manage and he is there every step of the way to make sure I do.
As my time with him draws to a close, I feel numb but glad it is over. I am sent for a heart scan, more bloods, (human pin cushion), and then back to the unit for a de-brief and a wig consultation. Life cannot get any weirder right now.
A portly, smiley lady bounces into a different consultation room I now find myself in. She’s accompanied by a large supermarket bag of wigs, boxes and what I can only describe as ‘tat’. There are wig catalogues spread out on a table. And a box of tissues. Are you kidding me? I am now about to chose my new hair from a book. I get a £90 NHS voucher towards a wig. Humour breaks through here because quite frankly I have nothing left to offer. I am not even funny. I feel utterly shit and I want to go home. I have loved my hair and it masks me and keeps me feeling relatively confident and within 21 days I will not have it anymore. Instead I am expected to wear one of these beautiful pieces from the ‘Racquel Welsh’ collection on my f****** head. I kid you not. I look for human hair. I do not want to look like a Little Britain character or Lily Savage. The choice is poor. OK I might be picky here, this is ‘my stuff’ playing out. Reluctantly I chose three, none of which resemble my current style, but I am told they can be cut and styled to my tastes. I am feeling pretty ugly right now. I text my own hairdresser – genius idea Heidi! – and beg her to sort me out. She will and here starts a flurry of texts between the two of us.
As the day wore on, the information from the oncologist filters in and I start to get a grasp of what is going to happen. I have so many people to share this with. As each conversation, message or video call slips by, I get more and more used to what is heading my way. My wonderful posse all contribute their opinions, support and at the end of the day (literally) when all this is brought together, and it is just my husband and I, a purple sunset over our garden and a bottle of wine, I think just for a second or two, that I could actually do this. I could survive chemotherapy. I could survive breast cancer.