When I started chemo six months ago I was a scared and emotional mess. The diagnosis hit me like a 10-ton truck and as treatment began that truck reversed slowly back over me as my body has been infiltrated by 16 sessions of a contradictory cocktail designed to save me whilst simultaneously causing its own level of damage.
Mentally it’s been a battle to ‘be positive’ and ‘be strong’ when some days all you want to do is scream, cry or curl up in a corner and curse cancer and all its ‘delightful’ extras.
Cancer has very few positives – but there are always some to focus on – and the main one is the sense of love and support from family and friends. The kindness, even from those I hardly know, has been overwhelming. I have made new friends and acquaintances through this journey which has opened my eyes enormously and I have learnt so much more than I expected through my own experience and from talking to others.
Yesterday was a momentous day as I completed my last chemo. To reach that point is exhilarating, exciting and emotionally a mixed bag! This journey has been like looking through the Argos catalogue in August as a kid and then waiting for Christmas to come. In true Kevin the Teenager style with a stamp of my foot and head rolled back: “it’s taking aaaaaaaaaages.”
Of course it’s not over yet Red Rover. I had an appointment with the surgeon last week who outlined her plan for a lumpectomy operation in about 4 weeks (next blog incoming). Double Mastectomy is not on the cards, and although the consultant looked about 14 years old (I had an image of her going home and practising slicing into my right breast on her life-sized doll called Miranda), I appreciate that I must accept the doctor’s expertise and plan of action.
During the operation they’ll also remove the damaged lymph nodes and then there will be a six to eight week recovery period before radiotherapy starts.
Radiotherapy basically zaps any remaining cancer cells which are hanging around like pissed guests slumped on your sofa hours after the party has finished. Or as someone said, hoovering up the shards of glass after you’ve dropped a glass and chemo has scooped up the big bits.
One woman envisaged chemo like Pacman going through her body chomping up the cancer cells and radiotherapy as a warm iron flattening and burning anything that remained.
I can only compartmentalise my treatment – stage one as I see it, is done, dusted and in the bag. Wanted to dance out of the chemo room yesterday like Strictly’s Amy Dowden (less elegantly) but in reality it was a bit of an anti-climax. Drove home and cried all the way, with what I think was mostly relief. My focus for the next few weeks is to concentrate on rebuilding my body ready for the big op and further treatment.
A pre-op appointment shows I am anaemic and my defenses are low. No shit Sherlock. So healing can be slow. I get a wound and it takes weeks to heal as my body’s white blood cells are mostly missing in action. So, time to try and kickstart those blighters.
Apparently, lots of protein and exercise are key, so once this first week of feeling crap is out of the way am on it to repair myself. Bit like the Six Million Dollar Man:
“We can rebuild him. We have the technology. We can make him better than he was. Better, stronger, faster.”
I am particularly looking forward to the return of my eyebrows and eyelashes. Having no eyebrows is a big challenge. I remember once reading Whoopi Goldberg doesn’t have eyebrows and up until that point I’d never noticed. But when you are faced with zero facial hair when looking at your own reflection it is always quite shocking.
In addition, no eyelashes means my eyes water. I was sat with a lady at the local Cancer Association today filling in my details to join their band of merry men and women and she asked if I needed psychological help. It was then I realised my eyes were running and she thought I was crying.
Meanwhile the stick-on tattoo things I bought early on from Amazon are next to useless whilst using a makeup pencil and drawing them in is a new skill I am trying to acquire. After the first attempt daughter raised her lovely natural eyebrows and not so subtly suggested she perhaps do them for me when I went out because the one lopsided thin line I’d drawn wasn’t really cutting it.
Trying to draw something that is the right amount bushiness, level and equal (so I don’t look like I am permanently surprised) is not a talent I seem to possess whilst another challenge is keeping them on.
Returned home from shopping the other day to find one eyebrow intact and the other on the back of my hand having inadvertently rubbed my face.
two steps freelance 