#6 INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS

“In a forest of a hundred thousand trees, no two leaves are alike. And no two journeys along the same path are alike.”

— Paolo Coelho

Greetings from Sofa Central on a Chemo Tuesday. We do like no blood test day as a three-hour stint is no real hardship, especially when one gets a bed again and can therefore nap at least an hour away.

Heard one of the nurses talking about the bed situation to the guy next to me and she explained the beds are given to those in need but also those who have longer treatment times. So Booyah! Shoes off and settle in. I’ll take those small moments of satisfaction.

It is a 30-minute drive (with no traffic!) to Hospital Universitario Virgen de la Victoria (or Clinico as it is known) which is a state-run hospital just on the outer edge of Malaga which opened 35 years ago. The oncology department is located in Patio Azul upstairs and consists of the Hospital de Dia (Day Hospital), a 600sq.m room which houses 9 beds and 15 chairs.

It is said each year around 10,000 cancer cases are diagnosed in Malaga of which Clinico Hospital treats 3,500. Demand is high. So the hospital is currently constructing a new Day Hospital which will double the size of what’s there at the moment and eventually have capacity for 52 chairs and 16 beds. It’s due to be completed by the end of this year/early 2025.

At the moment it’s quite a bleak room. Once you check in at the oncology desk they stick your ID bracelet on and then you sit and wait to be called into the Day Hospital and given your chair/bed number. Bar the chairs and beds, it is fronted by the nurses’ desk plus a toilet either end.  Patients are looked after by a very lovely team of nurses in green scrubs who pinball their way around the room putting in IV drips and changing treatment bags all to the cacophony of bleeping machines and nurse chitter chatter.

Patients tend to be quiet and subdued. It is like the humans we once were have been invaded by a ‘body snatcher’ alien spore which has created identical copies of ourselves to mimic us whilst we drag ourselves through this daunting journey. The real us is floating somewhere above peaking from behind the sofa at this horror B movie munching through a tub of popcorn.

Some patients play the part well. There are ‘glamour queens’ who dress up for the occasion some with high heels, wig and make up, or some are more suited as the ‘comfy crowd’ who know the drill and here to get their ‘chore’ done, whilst the ‘unprepared’ just sit and stare into space or scroll aimlessly through their phones.

I put myself in the ‘comfy crowd’. I have my go-to ‘chemo uniform’ I tend to wear each week so I don’t have to give it much thought and that is accessorised with my chemo tote bag with all manner of ‘stuff’ from snacks, headphones, book, notebook, mints and water bottle.

You often see the same faces. Thankfully ‘farty pants’ who I was unfortunately lay downwind of last week was gifting someone else with her sensory overload, instead I had ‘chatty Maria’ in the bed next to me today who animatedly announced to the nurses that her uncle was sitting in the chair opposite! Their family gatherings must be fun.

A young girl in her early 20s caught my eye today in the waiting room. Painfully thin in a pale yellow jogging suit, bald head and mask she sat hunched over and I could feel how poorly she felt and it made me cry. What a cruel twist of fate to attack someone so young. Bloody heartbreaking.

Anyway with today out of the way, I am now halfway through the first stint of the Taxol 12. I try not to think about the ‘end result’ of all this as it seems so far away at the moment plus I am so fed up with treatment and not feeling myself and having to cancel trips we had planned. We cancelled our UK weekend trip at the beginning of May and I have just cancelled an upcoming weekend away with friends we had planned in Seville knowing I just can’t manage the pace without doing it justice or being miserable or frustrated and ruining it for everyone else.

I miss being me.

I took the photo above a few weeks ago of this gorgeous ‘hybrid’ tree just outside the hospital. Basically, someone planted a Bourganvillea next to this tree and this very thorny invasive vine is slowly and methodically swallowing up the tree. When I first saw the tree at the beginning of my treatment I equated the Bourganvillea as the cancer invading me. Now however I have decided to see the Bourganvillea as the chemo invading the cancer.  Because I have to believe that some good is coming out of this arduous and vigorous assault.

Talking of being me. In my list of symptoms last week I forgot (ironically) to mention Chemo Brain.

This is a thing. Apparently signs and symptoms of chemo brain include disorganised behaviour or thinking, confusion, memory loss, trouble concentrating or learning, and making decisions. It is linked to a variety of things:

• Stress/emotion caused by cancer diagnosis
• Cancer itself
• Treatments – chemo, radiotherapy, immunotherapy etc.
• Side effects such as fatigue, low red blood cell count, sleeping changes, hormonal changes.

I was, at one point, a multi-tasking goddess. As some of you can attest to. I had a list for everything and usually operated with at least 15 tabs open in my head which I would work through and shut down as ‘tasks’ were completed. Drove the family nuts. But as my working life has revolved around deadlines for the last 30 odd years it’s bled over into my non-working life.

But chemo has killed off that ability! In one fail swoop, my tabs no longer remain in view on my mental screen. It’s like they open but I blink and it’s gone again. I have a thought and it vanishes and I chase it like running after an important letter that has escaped from my hand and is being blown erratically over a busy road by a gust of wind, with me in hot pursuit. Then just as I reach it, the wind changes and it falls and slides down into the roadside grid where Pennywise tears it up and spits it back out in shreds.

It’s wildly frustrating. Women going through menopause will probably relate – but then double it! Living in a three-storey house also makes this challenging as I seriously must lose hours going up and down stairs trying to remember what I needed to go up or down for!

So my new modus operandi is to slowly focus on one task at a time. I now know how men feel 😉