Ok, so eating two packets of crisps after my beans on seedy toast lunch isn’t going to help, but what else do you expect me to do about the nausea that’s just kicked in because I’ve run out of my brand new favourite wonder drug? Which ailment do I tend to? Constipation? Nausea? Constipation? Nausea? Daddy? Chips? The problem is that one affects the other and then if I take too many laxatives it’ll all end in tears when my old friend the pile makes its entrance. I told you it wasn’t all glamour. Actually, there’s absolutely no glamour involved in this whatsoever. Damn.
This might be why I have just comfort online shopped and bought a cover all maxi dress for a wedding we’re going to in June for which I shall be bald, steroid puffy, beetroot red and knackered. I usually love the preparation for a wedding. I love picking and choosing something to wear, usually something I’ve adapted from a charity shop (including my very own wedding dress I’ll have you know) or something super cheap from Ebay which knocks spots off the ever presiding Diane Von Furstenberg wrap dresses, and making something my own. This time, though, I just cannot get into it. Nothing looks right.
I’m not sure if it’s because I’ve got no hair or if it’s because my previously reliable and remained the same for 40 years body shape has changed so much beyond my recognition. I am not the same woman I used to be. I am possibly twice the woman I used to be.
It’s not that I particularly mind the weight increase, not really. I know that if I’m carrying a bit more weight it actually gives me a stronger chance of coping with the chemo so in the greater scheme of things that’s good. But in the lesser scheme? In the lesser scheme it makes my self-image hit the floor and this isn’t remotely helpful to my mental wellbeing. I know, I know, I know, there are more important things at stake here; I know it wouldn’t matter if I weighed 40 stone if I could guarantee the cancer wouldn’t come back. I’d go bald for good, I’d have painful knees, hips, nails, skin, feet, whatever it took to get that absolute assurance that I’ll be cancer free for the rest of my life, but that won’t happen. That will never happen.
The day I was diagnosed my landscape changed forever. And that isn’t a euphemism for the size of my bottom.
My current treatment is belt and braces; this is fact. The chemo and the radiotherapy will increase my chances of the cancer not coming back but because I’ve had it once the thought is now planted in my brain, in my body, and I cannot block out that constant, underlying nag. Interestingly, I think this brings me back to my ‘I am not a fighter’ blog from a few weeks ago because writing this now I realize that, indeed, I am fighting a battle but that battle isn’t with cancer, it’s with myself.
It is I who is potentially my own worst enemy in this situation. It is my brain constantly reminding me of my cancer and it is my brain which needs, somehow, to desist from listening to this. But it doesn’t work, because it’s in my brain, my head, my heart and my body and no amount of positive thinking can ever change that.
There are the chemo positivity chats; Hurrah! Four down two to go! The radiotherapy it won’t be so bad mantra; It’s tiring, but it’s not chemo! Not one jot of it makes a difference because I’ve had cancer and I might still have it now and that gives me more chance of getting it again than you’ve got of getting it at all.
So I’m sorry if I’m not always positive, I’m sorry if I don’t fit in with the I’m absolutely wonderful, lucky me for catching it so quickly, aren’t I doing well not to collapse dramatically under the pressure of the possibility of losing the life I love ideal I ought to be aiming for, but sometimes I don’t feel like smiling.
Sometimes I still go to move my hair out from under my handbag strap, sometimes I look longingly at pretty underwire bras that I’m not allowed to wear anymore, sometimes I wish I could run without my legs being so swollen and heavy. Every day I wish I’d never been diagnosed with cancer.
Perhaps I’ve come full circle here? As soon as I start to really feel sorry for myself there’s a little spark of defiance in my belly, that fight I said about earlier that tries so hard not to let the nagging voice be heard. The problem is, once it’s been woken I fear it can never be silenced.
Therefore, I shan’t be hard on myself for buying a maxi dress I might never wear or a pair of crazy pink pom pom shoes which don’t fit my ever burgeoning feet. I shall not berate myself for eating two bags of crisps and too many refined carbs. I shall not even feel bad about feeling sorry for myself occasionally. I shall, however, apologise for the fact that from a little comment about constipation came this. Funny how one word leads to another isn’t it?
A word of advice though, for the time being if you see me looking miserable, please try to cheer me up by telling me a joke, rather than telling me how lucky I am…
https://www.justgiving.com/baldys-buddies/