It’s been a crazy few days; the most immense, wonderful highs, but then some of the most crashing, horrible lows. My positivity turned on me and bit me hard on the bum. And it’s quite a big bum so it hurt quite a lot.
We did the CRUK Pretty Muddy run and it was brilliant. We have raised nearly £4000 (you can still sponsor us at the link below) and we had fun and frolicked and got muddy. In hindsight I realised that this had been the thing keeping me going. The fundraising, the training (not that it was remotely necessary because it wasn’t physically challenging in the slightest I’m glad to say) the hilarious messages sent between team members, the planning, the giggles, the highlighting the cause, and the feeling that I was doing something really important. Mostly though, the feeling of inclusivity. That was what I loved the most.
I have to pay homage to this wonderful group of women; family, friends and colleagues, who did it all with me and always gave me something positive to focus on. They were, and are, bloody brilliant.
But then it was over. We had run the race, we had had the fun, we had gained the injuries (oops, Mrs S) and life was moving on. What did I have to look forward to? Radiotherapy. Super.
I started it last week and had it on Thursday and Friday. I have to go into the RUH every weekday for three weeks. All my appointments are early morning so I leave the house while my boys are still sleeping and the hubby is bleary eyed. I don’t have breakfast or even a cuppa; I just get up, shower, dress and join the commuters on the A39.
Parking is easy because the hospital is quiet. My flip-flops echo their way down the pale green corridor to good old department A12 Oncology, the site of all things cancer/poison/radioactive related. I check myself in with my very own barcode at a little machine; it’s terribly space age.
There’s no hanging about in the big waiting area, I can take myself to the little waiting area round the corner instead. Here there’s an even stronger sense of camaraderie than in the big bit, we all know why we’re there and with some people it’s even possible to guess which type got them. Skin cancer is obvious and throat cancer you can identify. Mine isn’t so apparent but they all know I’m no fraud due to still being a bit on the bald side. Everybody says hello and we all talk about whether one of the machines is broken today (a broken machine means a looooooong delay) and we all try not to imagine each other in the position we’re going to end up in shortly. It’s important to keep one’s dignity intact in a place where you are stripped of it.
I’m called and put into one of many little changing rooms. The room has two doors; the other door takes you to the place it all happens. I take my clothes off, put on one of the gowns from the clean pile and wait. I can hear the last person come back from their treatment, all jolly and happy, like we all are. Then my door opens and I’m called through and all the nurses are just so lovely I could never be anything but polite and friendly myself.
Every day I repeat my birth date and my address (just in case there’s another Felicity in the building) and I clamber on to the metal bed. It looks a little bit as if it could be a vessel of torture. My legs have to go over a humpy thing; my arms have to go above my head in rests which have been specifically measured for me. There’s a pic of the top half below – not me – she’s considerably prettier, younger and hairier than me. The difference between the pic and what I do is that I have to lie there with my dodgy boob out and an A4 size plastic envelope of clear gel placed over it. I think the gel helps the radioactive waves get to the right place but I’m actually not sure, I ought to know really.
The nurses leave the room because the waves are so dangerous – which always cheers me – and I am left alone with the whirring machine. I cannot wriggle or breathe deeply. I cannot cross my legs. I cannot speak or even look down at myself because that’ll send the super specific measuring off kilter. I stay there for a few minutes, a nurse comes back in half way through, fiddles about with the gel, checks I’m ok, goes back out and leaves me with the machine again.
Sometimes I close my eyes while it happens, sometimes I stare at the ceiling where there are lit, printed panels of apple (I think) blossom, sometimes I sing along (in my head) to the music they play which could be anything at all. It’s ranged from Katie Mehlua to Michael Jackson (Beat It) to Lionel Richie. This morning it was one of Ministry of Sound’s chill out collections, I only know this because I used to play it to eldest to help him sleep when he was tiny. I could have fallen asleep to that.
The nurses come back in, we have a giggle, we talk about whatever comes to mind and we bid goodbye in happy, cheerful tones, which the next person on the block will be able to hear. There’s a routine, a very definite routine.
It doesn’t hurt while it’s happening; the soreness comes after. My boob is looking sunburnt and feels tender. The bottom bit where it meets my ribs is really painful inside and even the softest of bras antagonise it. And I’m knackered. Blimey, I’m knackered.
It’s true, radiotherapy isn’t chemo, but it’s brutal nonetheless.
So this is my excuse for being – during the crashing lows – so horrible to some of the people I love the most. The thing I’d been hanging on to, the thing keeping me sane, positive, busy and connected, has gone. And apart from radiobloodytherapy, which seems utterly interminable right now, I don’t know what I’m going to do next.
There’s only so much cleaning a girl can do…
https://www.justgiving.com/baldys-buddies/
https://www.facebook.com/felicity.gibson1
https://twitter.com/Baldybitesback
https://instagram.com/baldybitesback/
We did the CRUK Pretty Muddy run and it was brilliant. We have raised nearly £4000 (you can still sponsor us at the link below) and we had fun and frolicked and got muddy. In hindsight I realised that this had been the thing keeping me going. The fundraising, the training (not that it was remotely necessary because it wasn’t physically challenging in the slightest I’m glad to say) the hilarious messages sent between team members, the planning, the giggles, the highlighting the cause, and the feeling that I was doing something really important. Mostly though, the feeling of inclusivity. That was what I loved the most.
I have to pay homage to this wonderful group of women; family, friends and colleagues, who did it all with me and always gave me something positive to focus on. They were, and are, bloody brilliant.
But then it was over. We had run the race, we had had the fun, we had gained the injuries (oops, Mrs S) and life was moving on. What did I have to look forward to? Radiotherapy. Super.
I started it last week and had it on Thursday and Friday. I have to go into the RUH every weekday for three weeks. All my appointments are early morning so I leave the house while my boys are still sleeping and the hubby is bleary eyed. I don’t have breakfast or even a cuppa; I just get up, shower, dress and join the commuters on the A39.
Parking is easy because the hospital is quiet. My flip-flops echo their way down the pale green corridor to good old department A12 Oncology, the site of all things cancer/poison/radioactive related. I check myself in with my very own barcode at a little machine; it’s terribly space age.
There’s no hanging about in the big waiting area, I can take myself to the little waiting area round the corner instead. Here there’s an even stronger sense of camaraderie than in the big bit, we all know why we’re there and with some people it’s even possible to guess which type got them. Skin cancer is obvious and throat cancer you can identify. Mine isn’t so apparent but they all know I’m no fraud due to still being a bit on the bald side. Everybody says hello and we all talk about whether one of the machines is broken today (a broken machine means a looooooong delay) and we all try not to imagine each other in the position we’re going to end up in shortly. It’s important to keep one’s dignity intact in a place where you are stripped of it.
I’m called and put into one of many little changing rooms. The room has two doors; the other door takes you to the place it all happens. I take my clothes off, put on one of the gowns from the clean pile and wait. I can hear the last person come back from their treatment, all jolly and happy, like we all are. Then my door opens and I’m called through and all the nurses are just so lovely I could never be anything but polite and friendly myself.
Every day I repeat my birth date and my address (just in case there’s another Felicity in the building) and I clamber on to the metal bed. It looks a little bit as if it could be a vessel of torture. My legs have to go over a humpy thing; my arms have to go above my head in rests which have been specifically measured for me. There’s a pic of the top half below – not me – she’s considerably prettier, younger and hairier than me. The difference between the pic and what I do is that I have to lie there with my dodgy boob out and an A4 size plastic envelope of clear gel placed over it. I think the gel helps the radioactive waves get to the right place but I’m actually not sure, I ought to know really.
The nurses leave the room because the waves are so dangerous – which always cheers me – and I am left alone with the whirring machine. I cannot wriggle or breathe deeply. I cannot cross my legs. I cannot speak or even look down at myself because that’ll send the super specific measuring off kilter. I stay there for a few minutes, a nurse comes back in half way through, fiddles about with the gel, checks I’m ok, goes back out and leaves me with the machine again.
Sometimes I close my eyes while it happens, sometimes I stare at the ceiling where there are lit, printed panels of apple (I think) blossom, sometimes I sing along (in my head) to the music they play which could be anything at all. It’s ranged from Katie Mehlua to Michael Jackson (Beat It) to Lionel Richie. This morning it was one of Ministry of Sound’s chill out collections, I only know this because I used to play it to eldest to help him sleep when he was tiny. I could have fallen asleep to that.
The nurses come back in, we have a giggle, we talk about whatever comes to mind and we bid goodbye in happy, cheerful tones, which the next person on the block will be able to hear. There’s a routine, a very definite routine.
It doesn’t hurt while it’s happening; the soreness comes after. My boob is looking sunburnt and feels tender. The bottom bit where it meets my ribs is really painful inside and even the softest of bras antagonise it. And I’m knackered. Blimey, I’m knackered.
It’s true, radiotherapy isn’t chemo, but it’s brutal nonetheless.
So this is my excuse for being – during the crashing lows – so horrible to some of the people I love the most. The thing I’d been hanging on to, the thing keeping me sane, positive, busy and connected, has gone. And apart from radiobloodytherapy, which seems utterly interminable right now, I don’t know what I’m going to do next.
There’s only so much cleaning a girl can do…
https://www.justgiving.com/baldys-buddies/
https://www.facebook.com/felicity.gibson1
https://twitter.com/Baldybitesback
https://instagram.com/baldybitesback/