As my rabbits dine out on chantenay carrots and purple sprouting broccoli (yes they eat better than me), I sit and ponder over the day. Oncologist appointment. I felt he couldn’t wait to get off the phone from me, but he did day some of the right things in the right places. He also brought up in conversation the likelihood of outcomes after my operation. The best they can hope for is a ‘clear pathological removal’, or words to that effect. This means, when they go in and remove a wide margin around the original tumour location, they leave with no signs of anything left. But. There is always a but with this. They could go in and find residue of the tumour. I feel sick. My initial reaction is to slam the phone down on him. So, I have gone through all of this chemo for nothing?! So you are telling me the cancer could still be there – laughing at me with it’s twisted face? You have to be kidding me. I am livid. I don’t hang up on him, and I keep my tone of voice as neutral as I can. I want to ask him directly things I know he cannot answer. No one can. Back to that day when I was diagnosed. The questions outweigh the answers and the answers are not available to you. I will now have to wait months for the only question I have. Has the cancer completely gone? I know, deep down inside, this will never be able to be answered. I will not get the definitive response I have worked hard to achieve. He does say that even if there is some residue left ‘This won’t always predict the likelihood of the cancer coming back’. My sister used a metaphor to help me feel at ease with this discussion. Imagine a balloon. It pops, there is still the skin of the balloon left, but nothing inside.
He wasn’t saying anything I didn’t know already, but this realization that actually, the op may mean something other than ‘the end’, was enough to install the anxiety into every every part of my body.
I settle myself. Rational thinking. If the chemo has obliterated a 4cm tumour….crack on and cut me open. You’ll find nothing.
F*** you.
I see a few clients. Not able to work at any speed anymore – saddens me. I try not to think about it. Keep busy. I have a good day and I hope I have made a difference.
Then someone who I have not spoken to you in over 10 years, sends me a card in the post. Cards come often so I open them without any hesitation. This one is no different. Now it is no coincidence this card arrives the week my husband and I publish my blog. So. I expect you are reading this right now, so my message to you is clear.
DO NOT CONTACT ME AGAIN
There is a reason I have not been in touch with you or had you anywhere near my life for over 10 years.
Respect that. Especially now.
I share my feelings of disgust with a selection of close friends who share my reaction. These people are my family now. No you. They know ME. YOU DON’T.
They all close in on me and I feel their cloak of care. All in different parts of Wales, the UK, the world – but all with the same resolve. To protect me.
I breathe out and smile hard. I have the most amazing set of allies around me and this chemo queen will not be moved.
When all this is over, and it will be soon – I will name and salute each and everyone of you. You are all so important to me and I’ll NEVER EVER forget what you have done.
As weekend#3 fast approaches I am sat drinking wine with my husband, replying to Facebook messages, which yet again remind me I am human and I am doing well. I say wine, it could be anything. I cannot taste it. I can taste the sourness of it if I try really hard – but he could have put anything in this glass! My appetite has gone, which you think would be a good thing. Well it would be, but someone forgot to tell my waistline I ain’t eating anywhere near as much as I was once. Said waistline, is all for getting wider and thicker. I don’t get it? The first 4 cycles of AC where the steroids had me at the mercy of pie, chips, cheese and bread…..not a pound on! Now, no taste buds or desire to eat anything and I am growing by the bloody day. I hate it.
I am also reminded that my plight is not as traumatic as others. I am told other stories – others journeys through this shit, and I am humbled. I am privileged to be able to listen and be with their pain and really empathize with what they are experiencing. I feel disabled at the lack of real difference I can’t make. I can’t make their cancer dissolve and give them back their lives. I can’t stop their fears and anxieties and restore their lives back into some other shape than they have now.F*** I am angry. I am full of the stuff and I can’t let it go.
22:37 pm – I am looking for my cat. His fluffy face greets me at the kitchen door. He’s fluffing up for the winter! His tail is fluffier and fatter and he’s looks chunkier. So bloody handsome. I let him in and he just sits and looks at me – smiling – his pink lips are on full show as I ask him what he wants. Food of course! I fill his bowl with supper and as I pick him up to cuddle him he rattles with purrs of affection.
He’s the only one thing left in this horrendous journey to not look at me differently. Bald. Wig. Make up on. Make up off. Sad. Anxious. Scared. Depressed. No matter what he has seen he’s just looked at me and smiled. He doesn’t notice and I love that. He has cold crispy ear tips tonight and I can feel his purrs through my pajamas’s. #pussycatpurrssssssss
It’s Gogglebox night and I am having hot flushes. It’s not because of Giles’s dry humour. Oh no. It is my body’s way of reminding me I am on the way to the knacker’s yard ….. My Grandad’s saying!
I experience hot flushes differently thanks to my baldy fluffy head. It glows. Like some nuclear radiation testing site. You can see it in the next village on from me I swear. A solar panel head.
My cat is now sat in the shelf of our TV unit and he is so well fitted to this space. His tail and four legs curled together in a a beautifully crafted shape. For the first time in weeks, my husband has gone to bed before me. I think about how the three weekly cycles determine my life. Weekend after chemo – bed before 8pm….sleeping in and out of the side effects and their messy noise. No life. No food. No energy. No wine. Weekend #2’s – you can never tell. It can go either way – or a mixture of both. The side effects linger longer now, that is for sure. But how they present themselves is anyone’s guess. You just open your eyes on the Saturday and pray for the best. Tonight though I feel alive. I feel I can stay awake for the rest of my life – surviving on the joy of not feeling unwell or unbalanced in anyway. The clock ticks over to midnight and I am still watching Gogglebox – I think this is the third episode. It is so bloody funny – I am wondering if I am laughing just for the sake of it now. Who gives a f***. I am laughing. From the belly. Which means I am in no pain and the real, genuine joy of watching others live their lives without the curse of cancer lifts my spirit right out into the dark navy sky and into the pattern of stars and planets I can see from my lounge window. Life. It is out there. I can see it. It is real and the moon winks at me to remind me, that one day……. one day soon, I will look up to the stars on their patchwork of blue and blacks and know I am no longer the product of chemotherapy. I will be side effect-free, weak, yes, but on the road to a life that is totally new to me. A life where cancer once ‘was’ but is no more. A life where I am bolder, brighter and glisten and gleam like the multitude of dancing balls of gas above my house.