Is that all for little ol' me???

The following is written retrospectively and NOT in real time. I am currently two years in remission and intend to be so for the foreseeable future...

So the treatment begins (thank god for that, I hear you say, maybe the end is nigh...literally!). I return to the chemo suite where I had my induction. The room is half full with people either waiting to start treatment for the day or in the process of having it. The atmosphere is calm and quite peaceful, although this could seem to be the case because of the whirlwind of the reception area I've just come from!

 

This is NOT an accurate portrayal of any of my chemo nurses!

I scan the room looking at all the other patients assembled here. I'm wondering if I did the right thing by delaying starting. Maybe if I had started with the other inductees last week I might have a bit of camaraderie about the whole thing. Like we were all in this together instead of feeling like an outsider looking in.

A nurse comes up to me and asks me where I'd like to sit. My mind is whirling and I resist the urge to say "Anywhere else but here, love!". As I look around trying to find an empty seat (who'd have thought this was the place to be!) I decide on a spot on the other side of the room which seems less conjested. 
It is lovely and bright on that side of the room too and I can't quite understand why others have chosen to sit away from the light (but is something I do come to understand as treatment progresses, but again another tale for another post...) 

There are different types of chairs available. There are armchair types of chairs. There are reclining chairs with padded headrests. There are a couple of what look like massage tables. I decide that the armchair style looks good as not sure I can be trusted in a recliner type as it has a control pad and I am bound to end up pressing the wrong button at the wrong time (which is actually very perceptive of me because yes, you've guessed it, there is a future post about just such a situation...). I am intrigued by all these different types of seating. Who uses what and in what order? Have I chosen the wrong chair, will I regret my choice of chair, are all those sitting on the other side there for a reason? Are they all exchanging knowing glances with each other silently acknowledging to one another that I've made a terrible choice. While this ridiculous dialogue is taking place in my over active, over thinking and completely over the top mind the same nurse comes back with a clip board and thankfully breaks me from my crazy meanderings. 

She asks me to confirm my name and date of birth. She then asks me what I am there for which completely throws me off centre. I resist the urge to say a pedicure or to respond by saying, "Well if you don't know how the hell am I meant to." I then start thinking, "Is it a trick question or do I have a choice?" Oh god. I want my brain to just switch off. Suddenly I can't start this treatment quick enough if it will slow down my 'runaway-train-which-is about-to-crash-brain' and stop the persistent unanswered questions swirling around my head. I tentatively answer with more of a question, "For chemotherapy?". She smiles and I suppose ticks it off her list of questions. There is no explanation as to why she has asked me what seems to me to be a bleeding pointless question so I come to the conclusion that for legal purposes she needs to confirm that I am really not expecting a pedicure! 

She then passes me a questionnaire which consists of a series of questions about how I am currently feeling. Over the next 16 weeks I am asked the same set of question to see how I fare under the treatment. However at this point I speed through the questions. I'm feeling fucking fantastic I want to write so you've all made a monumental mistake because if I had this cancer thing you all insist I have surely I would feel it and all these questions would make more sense. However this isn't how this cancer thing works. It's not sitting on my left tit in a high-vis jacket with a beacon strapped to it's head. No it's nestled away causing havoc underneath the surface so that right now none of us can see it. My friend is chatting away trying to maintain an air of calmness like we are just hanging out. I'm trying to concentrate on what she's saying and mentally preparing myself, however my mind wanders off. I start thinking what a really beautiful sunny winters day it is. Too gorgeous to be here. However before my mind starts drifting off completely the nurse comes back with a trolley full of drugs. 

She takes one of my hands and looks at it intently, she tells me, to see how good my veins are as she needs to put a cannula into my hand. I am sure all of this was explained to me at the induction, but I can't remember a thing and as I allowed a week to pass I cannot even begin to raid my memory bank for any such information. I was so much in denial about all of this ever happening and that at the last moment the oncologists were going to run into the chemo suite clutching a piece of paper saying they'd got it wrong or they'd mixed up my results with someone else's!

However this isn't the case. It's now very real and there is no turning back. I've got to be a big girl and just get on with this now. The nurse suggests that I put my hand in some hot water as that helps to bring up the veins and makes the process of inserting the cannula much easier. I walk numbly to the sink and and do as I am told. It all feels very surreal. Little do I know how quickly I will adapt to these rituals and do them automatically without even questioning them or being nervous of them. They will become part of the process for getting better. However this first time feels overwhelming. I am trying not to cry and wishing I could hold on longer to this last minute before my life changes forever, but I can't. The chemo suite is getting busy and the nurse is leading me back to my seat. 

My veins are, according to her, looking good. "Thank god I injected into my groin when I was on heroin!". I actually have no idea why I said that. It was like some cancer induced Tourette's! It was an incredibly weak and probably highly inappropriate attempt to lighten the situation, but I couldn't help myself. If I didn't try to laugh I knew I would just break down. However she then starts to look really confused and picks up my notes so I quickly have to tell her I was joking. She smiles weakly probably wondering what sort of cretin she has before her. 

However she continues in her professional and efficient manner. She inserts the needle into the back of my hand which hurts more than I thought it would. I squeeze my friend's hand, so grateful she is there with me. I thankfully have never been needle phobic and thought it would just be like have an injection or having a blood sample taken, but it's not. It hurts and is uncomfortable for a good five minutes. However it does start to settle as my hand gets used to this invasion into its veins. She then rolls the drugs trolley nearer to her. She begins to explain what is going to take place (am saving the detail for my next post or I will never finish this one!) I'm trying again to take it all in, but it's not really working. I am transfixed by all the drugs on the trolley. I keep thinking how does she knows whose is whose. Also I am confused as she is injecting the drugs into me herself. I assumed I would be attached to a drip like you see in the movies. Why is she doing this? I obviously really missed all this at my induction or maybe they gave me something to read which I have failed to do, but I am more confused than ever (which is not that hard these days)...

I hear my disembodied voice start to ask the nurse questions, "Is it normal for you to be injecting me?", to which she replies yes and explains why. I then ask her about how she knows which drug is for who. She looks puzzled and I say that the syringes look huge and there are quite a few of them so I take it she has drugs for more than one patient and it must get confusing who is for who. She looks at me again rather puzzled, but reassures me that each trolley has all the drugs for one patient's chemo session. The drugs cannot be put onto the trolley until they are ready to be administered. I must look horrified as she quickly reassures me that the whole process might look daunting, but only takes about 30 to 40 minutes then I'm free to go and enjoy the rest of the day. I am still stuck on the fact that so many drugs are going to be pumped into my body. This from the person who has only had up, until this point, had to take an antihistamine for hay fever, the contraceptive pill and an asthma inhaler from time to time! That's as toxic as I've been - well on non-recreational drugs anyway!!!

I cannot get my head around the fact that all those drugs that look like they should be administered to an elephant or at least a large horse are actually just for little old me! What the fuck am I going to feel like with all that swishing around my body? And after 8 sessions I am going to be well and truly medicated! I am stunned into silence. I feel powerless and scared, but I have no choice. I don't want to die, but I also don't want to be made to be so ill that I can't function and there is no way I am going to breeze through this with that amount of stuff in me. I feel so stupid that I didn't do enough research on what was about to come. But it's too late now. I swallow back tears and close my eyes still clutching my friend's hand. The nurse asks if I'm ok and I nod my head keeping my eyes closed. I am exhausted from the rollercoaster of emotions that I have felt since my diagnosis, but I need to stop fighting and trust that everyone involved, my cancer entourage, know what they are doing and that all I have to go through is going to make me better in the long run and hoping, with everything crossed, cancer free. 

"I'm ready.", I say to the nurse and within seconds I begin to feel the liquid coursing through my veins. The next stage of my gap year is well and truly underway...

Storm in a chemo cup

The following is written retrospectively and NOT in real time. I am currently two years in remission and intending to be so for the foreseeable future...

I cannot quite believe that I have written 22 posts and am only just beginning to share the actual treatment process with you ("We can!" I hear you cry, "Get a bloody move on!"). Talk about procrastination. However there is method in my madness. The idea being that by the time I have finished this tome they will have found a cure for cancer and we all get to have that "even in the face of adversity" happy ending we all love and my blog ends on a Richard Curtis feel-good factor flourish where Hugh Grant with all his fumbles, awkwardness and humbleness still gets the amazing, quirky, beautiful girl against all the odds! And keeping with the Richard Curtis theme what could we call the film version of my blog? "8 Chemos and a Lumpectomy" or "Cancer, Actually".  But there I go digressing yet again...

So the journey begins. First on my list of able helpers is one of my oldest (in duration of time known NOT age) friends, Jo. When I sent my round robin email and text request for designated drivers she was the first to respond. Actually I think she even offered before I asked. She was also keen that having experienced this with another of her friends first hand that she would like to come with me to the first one. I gratefully accepted. 

And how glad I am to have her with me. We have been through lots together over the years. Our families were friends before I was even born so she is like family to me and like family we've had our ups and downs. We've shared pivotal moments which are firmly locked in my memory bank, but also had times punctuated by fall outs, misunderstandings and downright belligerence! However those were in our younger more impetuous days and because of that shared history right now right here I wouldn't want to be with anyone else. 

We come into the chemotherapy suite reception and are greeted by a highly excitable receptionist who is agitated about one thing or another. I use the word 'greeted' lightly as it was more of a look of complete shock and disbelief that someone might be coming into a chemo suite reception intending to have some chemotherapy (maybe even pretending they needed it...) Bizarre that! And the reason I say that is I'm asked whether I'm in the right place, whether I'm sure on the date and a number of other what can only be classed as 'trick questions' - all of this happening when I can see my name clearly on the list. What has flumuxed her is that I am quite early. Jo is a stickler for punctuatilty and it could be said that I struggle with the concept at times so she has factored in a lot of 'wriggle' time for us to proverbially 'wriggle' and not as I would probably do left to my own devices which would be to turn up in a hot sweaty mass of apology and confusion. However our 'wriggle' time is interpreted by our erstwhile receptionist as less 'wriggle' more fucking up the carefully orchestrated list in front of her and it doesn't make her wriggle but actually squirm! 

Now I know it can't be an easy job having to work in a stressful environment with very sick people demanding attention, cavalier doctors in a wave of white coats sweeping through the ward throwing out edicts to overworked, harassed and undervalued nursing staff. However that scenario cannot be further from the truth in what is actually an oasis of calm. It's my fevered imagination running off again having glimpsed at one too many episodes of Casualty or Holby City. It really isn't like that at all and in all my time attending the hospital I never once saw a glimpse of any shenanigans between the aforementioned doctors and nurses of a less medical more than friends nature! But who knows what was going on in the private chemotherapy suite above! The only person causing waves within this still oasis was our whirlwind of a receptionist.

However over the next 16 weeks of coming here every two weeks I got use to her and actually found her dramas and angst highly entertaining. I think actually it was all a ruse to take us chemotherapy patients' minds off of what lay ahead. If that was the case she excelled and was NHS money most definitely well spent! 

But on this first occasion it is quite disconcerting and a little alarming. However once she has located me on her list and this particular drama has been abated we wait patiently for my name to be called. As waiting rooms go it is actually a really nice one - bright and airy. It also has a really nice selection of hot drinks for which you make a small donation towards the cost. You can even help yourself to the different varieties of ice pops in the small freezer which has proven to be vital to many during this particular cycle of chemo. But I'll come back to that later...

As the waiting room begins to fill up I am soon very quickly surrounded by people at differing stages of treatment and in most cases accompanied by someone. Some are bright, chatty and very funny. Others are more withdrawn, quiet and reserved. Some look really good and it's difficult to know who is the patient and who is the friend or family member. Some people look like the way I imagined and had seen cancer patients look in films or TV - pale, withdrawn and quite clearly unwell. But again in this world of cancer there is no one consistent picture or image. People deal with this differently and each person has their own tolerance levels and in turn will fare differently with their treatment plan. People come and go and suddenly I hear my name being called. 

Up until this point I had tried to keep calm and not think about what lay beyond those swing doors. However when my name is called the reality of what is about to happen kicks in and I am suddenly really scared. I know I have to do this, but I am frightened of not knowing what is going to happen to me and how I'm going to feel and if it will even work. All those old feelings of anger, resentment and fear that I suppressed since after those first few weeks following diagnosis are crystal clear and bubbling up to the surface again. This fucking disease. My mind is reeling. 

My friend picks up on my anxiety and squeezes my hand tightly as we get up. I want to slow time down to capture and keep this moment before everything changes forever. I want someone to rush in and say there's been a mistake and they've got the wrong person and my naughty left tit isn't so naughty after all and was just winding us all up. But no-one is coming to save me from what's behind those doors. "It's just you and the chemo, kid", I think to myself (and no I'm not referring to a super hero or a cowboy, though right at that moment I wish I was). I take a deep breath, steel myself and   push open the double doors. 

As I walk through the door I am overwhelmed by all the emotions that I have been feeling up until the point and suddenly I feel like I have turned into Charles Bronson in Death Wish or Clint Eastwood in Dirty Harry or better still Arnie Schwarzenegger in The Terminator (all the original ones of course!). Fuck you cancer. I'm coming to get you. 

Hasta la vista baby...

        

Hair Today Gone Tomorrow

My D day is looming and I have one last thing to do before I step onto the treatment treadmill which will, I have no doubt, change my life forever. That last thing is to go get a wig. It's not that this is an enshrined pre-requisite to having chemotherapy. From my own research and talking to people I know that many don't do the wig thing for a whole host of reasons and opt for a headscarf or hat or even go au naturel,  but I want to be ready for all eventualities. I also secretly harbour a desire to be incognito and to have a wig that is so unlike my natural hair that no one will recognise me and therefore throughout this gap year I can ostensibly be undercover. I know, I know. Most people would be angsting and agonising about the hairloss, but I see it as an opportunity to be someone else. I think Freud would have a field day with my fucked up psyche. But it's much simpler than that. I am a bit of a show off and a frustrated wannabe thespian so this allows me a chance to sink into a fantasy world where I could be anyone or go anywhere else other than here having to face my own immortality. I also quite like the idea of going blonde!

For this task I need to chose my shopping companion wisely as I cannot be trusted to do this momentous task on my own. I have very little sense of style (or indeed any style) and am sure in my panic I will buy something that resembles a merkin or leaves me looking either like Paul Daniels or at the other extreme Bet Lynch.

Anyway as my last post shows I am truly blessed with the most amazing friends all with their own wonderful qualities and strengths. I therefore need someone from amongst this group who will be brutally honest, is stylish and won't let me leave the shop looking like a very very poor excuse for a drag queen or a reject from a reality show with really bad hair extensions or WAG aspirations. I need a fashionista straight talker who won't bullshit me and there is only one person who keeps popping into my head. The lovely Anne-Marie whose sense of style is unique and always looks fabulous, and whose Liverpudlian 'no-nonsense-or-won't-suffer-fools-gladly' roots ensures that this will definitely
be a 'no bullshit zone'!

My only experience of buying wigs is at novelty or joke shops for parties or Halloween so therefore don't think it makes me a very good judge of what would be right. I have been very good at masquerading as Morticia Adams, Cher (circa Sonny and Cher) or Ronald McDonald, but I have no experience of buying wigs for aesthetic purposes and had no idea that a shop in Hove called Trendco, that has been supplying women with wigs for years, even existed. However it does and I make an appointment.

We arrive at a very unassuming building which looks more like an office block than a wig shop. Though I have no idea why I say that as I don't know what I imagine a wig shop to look like. Maybe like a hairdressers or a beauty salon. However I think it's initial unassuming appearance is such as not to make women feel self conscious about having to go to a place like this. It's always said that a woman's hair is her crowning glory so to be in a position whereby you are having to face up to losing it, admit you are already losing it or you've lost altogether must be such a difficult situation to find yourself in and to have to face. So in order to make these women feel less distressed they make it less obtrusive and obvious to others. Not a good analogy but it reminds me of how sex shops use to market themselves with no advertising and maybe just signage above the door informing that it was an "Adult" or "Private" shop with a clientele of very sad looking middle aged men in macs trying to get in and out of the shop without being seen clutching a brown paper bag filled with their illicit goods with descriptive, but not very imaginative titles such as "Big Jug Lovers". It feels quite quaint remembering the secretiveness of these shops in our out there world of social media, twerking and Snapchat and the like, where it's participants are keen to share the most intimate of details and images in a heartbeat. The shops now have names like Taboo, Sh! and Harmony... And nothing is hidden. It's all out there for everyone to see with nothing left to the imagination.

Maybe this revolution will one day extend to women's hairloss. But not today. Today hairloss and wigs are safely tucked behind a blank veneer allowing the company to provide a discreet and, I have to say, very professional and empathic service to its customers - helping them to face the changes ahead in relation to their personal appearance in a sensitive and supportive way. 

I have tried to approach this in a different way. One where I see hair as not important especially as I don't believe that the hair I already have is such a great crowning glory as to be mourned. I fear less about my hair falling out, more about being so ill and weak wracked with fatigue that I am incapable of doing things for myself or at least severely compromised in trying to. So I think my attitude is about approaching this purchase as a bit of fun. I may never ever take it out the box, but I'm going to enjoy the process of selecting it. I have also definitely chosen the right person to do this with as we certainly have a laugh at the ridiculous looks that emerge in the next hour. 

We are greeted by a woman with glorious hair. I so want to ask if it's all her's, but think better of it. She is very attentive and extremely helpful and knowledgable. She really knows her wigs. My initial thoughts are that I am not going to be hiding my hairloss so I am not trying to replicate my own hair (not that I would want to and pay for it!). If I was going for a long hair look I'd want bounce and body. I'm thinking Farrah Fawcett-Majors (or actually any Charlie's Angels a la 1970s or the 2000s version would suffice). However I am thinking this is a good opportunity to go short and gamine. However what no-one points out, which is the elephant in the room, is indeed the elephant in the room - me! Pixie haircuts and short sassy crops look great on slim, elfin girls and young women, even well groomed and maintained older women. But on someone carrying a bit more flesh than is probably necessary it doesn't have the same effect whatsoever. Every shorter cut wig just looks fucking hideous. I at least had hoped I would look like Halle Berry's older and slightly fatter sister. But the image looking back at me couldn't be further from that imagined truth. 

I just look and feel like a menopausal (though well coiffured) middle aged woman desperately trying to look younger. At worst I feel fat, dumpy and a little bit butch - a cross between Big Mo from Eastenders and Wee Jimmy Krankie. I am feeling anything but "fan-fucking-dabi-dozi"!

We all decide that maybe short isn't the way to go and we start to look at longer versions. Bizarrely and contrary to what I thought I appear to look better with hair that a WAG would fight me for. Lots of bouncy curls and incredibly girly, though somewhat on the fake side. However there was me thinking I would look like mutton dressed as lamb, but I'm looking like a smokin' rack of BBQ lamb. Not sure that's a good analogue but you get the drift. I looked pretty hot. However again these styles fall into the category of look low maintenance, but require high maintenance input which I knew I could not sustain and after a few wears the look would very quickly descend into a look more like that of Neil in The Young Ones or Lemmy. I needed length, but practical (as the bishop said to the actress...) God how boring, but true. It needed to be that low maintenance looking to low maintenance input ratio. However we are running out of options at the lower cost range. Anne Marie picks up on my sense of disillusionment. She spies a blonde wig which looks fun, just the right length and not as tousled and teased as the others I have tried. She urges me to try it on. We had joked about me trying on a blonde one and as I am here it would seem churlish not to. I put it on and the image staring back at me looks amazing. It's the right length and looks really natural. It has a nice bounce to it and is a bit sexy too without being too overt. I wouldn't feel self conscious or fake in it. It's does feel slightly retro circa 1950s but with a less styled look. However I think it's because it's blonde. I feel a little like an extra from Mad Men. 

As much as I want to be reckless and approach this wig purchasing with a two fingers up who-gives-a-fuck swagger I know that I may have to wear this wig often and as much as the fun of seeing people's reaction to my new found blondness I fear the novelty would wear thin very quickly. I need longevity so I enquire whether this style comes in another colour resembling my own. It does. It's the right price too and with the £60 deduction on the NHS for medical purposes it's a steal. With my wig called Carrie (very Sex and the City-esque) in its box in its plain carrier bag I leave this unassuming building ready to face the world and more importantly feeling better equipped to face the one side effect I know I will definitely experience. Chemo do you worse. I've got a 'Carrie' in a box which I'm not afraid to use along with a plethora of crazily coloured headscarfs that would give Camilla Batmanghelidjh a run for her money. Hair loss - I laugh in your face. Bring it on...

Don't you know who I am? (answers on a postcard please!)

So I've left my job with all its trials and tribulations to face one of the most challenging chapters of my life. However I still have a few days left to do some nice things before I begin chemotherapy. It really feels like life is about to change unrecognisably for me and I want to have nice memories I can quickly access when I'm not feeling so great whilst in the thick of it all.

I have some spa vouchers given to me by my colleagues at work when I moved from one civil service department to another and had never gotten round to using. My partner's father had also given me some money to '...do something nice'. I thought if I added these together it would enable me to take someone with me to share the 'nice' experience I was determined to have. So I ask one of my lovely friends who very quickly takes up the offer and now I find myself looking for a spa that will take the vouchers. We are limited but eventually I find one that is in the Brighton Marina. Bit of an arse end of nowhere to get to on public transport, but if we sort out the timing well enough we can be in and out then off to enjoy a lovely leisurely lunch afterwards back in the bosom of the city centre with a few glasses of wine thrown in to get us all 'toxined' up again. 

I book us in for a Thai massage which works with the amount of money that I have and sounds quite lovely and hands-on according to the 'menu' on the website. None of that light sweeping touch effleurage stuff for me. I want to be pummelled and prodded and chopped. Basically 'man-handled' in a nice 'massagey' way. I am asked whether for an extra £20 each we would like to use the hydra therapy pool beforehand. It again sounds delightful and I sign us up to the whole works. I then get a phone call from a friend and before the conversation ends I tell her my plans which she thinks are great. However she is just concerned about the hydrotherapy pool and is worried that I might be opening up myself to potential infection threats prior to starting such aggressive treatment. At first I think she is being overly cautious. But although I am crapping myself about starting this treatment and so wish I wasn't I have already worked out the treatment plan and how long it's going to take and I don't want anything to delay the end date. I call the spa back and cancel the hydrotherapy pool. 

So the day arrives and we find ourselves off to the spa. I'm not quite sure what to expect as although the photos on the website looked gorgeous we all know that's no guarantee. However on this occasion it really was an amazing oasis of calm. Just what we both needed. Subtle atmospheric lightning, wonderfully evocative smells and fantastic sumptuous decor. I give our names to the receptionist. She looks confused and says there is no booking. She goes through her bookings sheet but our names do not appear. My feelings of calm and tranquility are starting to seep away and are quickly becoming replaced with anxiety and hysteria. I find my voice becoming high pitched and emotional. I haven't come to this beautiful oasis on two types of public transport to the pain-in-the-arse-to-get-to Marina. My 'Violet Beauregarde' of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory fame is riding to the surface. But it's not an ompah-lumpah I want and want NOW. It's my massage. I WANT IT AND I WANT IT NOW!!! I am short of saying to them the most ridiculous thing ever which is 'do you know how I am?' because quite clearly there is really no reason why on this earth they should know me. I don't even know who I am these days so why should I expect anyone else to know. Maybe subconsciously I'm looking for the answer, but trust me I wasn't being that philosophical and existentialist that day. I was just being a grumpy, hormonal mardy mare. Anyway it is quite clear from their booking sheet they haven't a fucking clue who I am!

I have decided that I will not be treated like this and in a hysterical torrent tell them that in no uncertain terms. Much of what I say is lost to them as English is not their first language, but they regardless of this are trying to placate me, but I am so caught up in my own melodrama that I start to descend into those murky depths that I vowed that I would never descend to - using my cancer for sympathy. I know not pretty or clever and am not proud, but all I could see was my imagined tranquil pre-treatment  odyssey turning into a nightmare which in turn (in my illogical reasoning) did not bode well for the treatment ahead. If booking a simple massage was beyond me how the fuck would I cope with nine months of intensive treatment for which I needed to keep on top of in order to get through it. 

Thankfully I choose to do this massage experience with a wonderful friend who admirably becomes the voice of reason possessing the skills of a expert negotiator navigating her way between two waring nations to establish foundations for peace talks in order to resolve this crisis. Firstly they have no appointments until 11am (it's now 10.00) but they will only be able to do one of us at that time and the next one at 12.30. "What the fuck..." I hear the words coming out of my mouth like a woman possessed. She quickly continues the negotiations at a pace hoping to cut me off before I start again.  But not before I chip in that "we want to be together" or else it's prolonging our time in arse-end-of-nowhere territory. She takes this on board and tries to find a time when they can accommodate us but she getting nowhere fast. I can't bear this anymore. I know very dramatic, but all I wanted was a relaxing massage to alleviate some of this stress that's been building up over the last few weeks (sorry who am I kidding - I mean the last few months/years/decades not that one session would be enough to untie those knots that I have lovingly and painstakingly nurtured which crisscross my back and shoulders!) Still what is happening here is certainly not what I wanted or expected. I should be being pummelled, chopped and remoulded back into something quite lovely. All floppy, flexible, agile and supple. But I am not anywhere near that. I am still in this husk of a body that is aching, miserable, tense and diseased. 

As I start to speak I see the receptionist usher someone over to deal with me as quite clearly she's had enough of my hysteronics. He is the manager and he explains that it appears I cancelled the booking. I explain as calmly as I can that I didn't. All I did was cancel our hydrotherapy pool session prior to the massages. I explain that I had booked appointments so that we could have the massages simultaneously as we had plans for the rest of the day. I keep my cool even surprising myself. However when he starts to say they can do one of us now and the other in two hours time I just lose the plot. I hear my voice raising and I am sure I see out of the corner of my eye the receptionist run for cover! "What do you not understand? WE WANT TO BE TOGETHER. How much clearer can I be? And if you can't do that then let's just forget." I can see my friend is mortified by that suggestion as she really wants this massage. She cranks up the negotiating skills into overdrive and ascertains that they can "do us together" in two hours time. Eureka! We have a break through. We are ushered out with reassurances that we will be have our request for togetherness fulfilled. Now the real challenge is to find what to do to fill two hours in the arse-end-of-nowhere...

Working 9 to 5 NOT my way to make a living

9 to 5 The Movie

 As I am inducted into my 'new job' it is time to say goodbye to my old job. It's a hard one for me. As much as my love affair with my work was starting to wane even before my diagnosis, I had been so seeped into my world of offender management that I couldn't imagine a working life anywhere else or doing anything else. Even though ironically I knew it really wasn't good for my health mentally or otherwise I struggled with making the decision to leave. However money was now on the table in the form of voluntary redundancy and as I had been there for a considerable time it was certainly worth taking. So as you will know if you have followed me on my rocky road with cancer I had already decided to take the money and run before I knew that I wasn't actually going to be doing much on the running front in the foreseeable future.

However the decision had made me feel empowered and excited. Even though I had no idea what I would do, I knew that whatever I ended up doing could only make me feel better. It felt absurd to think this considering how much I had invested into this path both emotionally and financially with a degree and a masters in criminal justice policy, but it had run its course. Since my son had been born my life had changed unrecognisably and these changes impacted daily on my life. As much as I was committed to my work and my contribution to reducing reoffending I knew that the drive and desire to make a change and be recognised for that was beginning to diminish. This had been accelerated by the way I was treated on my return from maternity leave (as is the case for many women). If anything I worked harder to prove I could be a super worker, super mother, super partner, super daughter - just an all round goddamn super woman. However even though I was being recognised for my contributions it ultimately wasn't enough. A new coalition government had come into being and in civil service speak 'the direction of travel' had well and truly changed. All the rehabilitative achievements that had been made could be legitimately stymied under the auspices of austerity. So the proverbial throwing 'the baby out with the bath water' began. We were about to embark upon a 'rehabilitation revolution' with the concept of 'payment by results' replacing upfront investment which meant that all the amazing work that had been undertaken by small but dedicated providers would be lost and steamrollered over by larger organisations (seemingly regardless of any level of expertise in the subject) who could afford to do this and tender for bigger more far-reaching projects. I couldn't reconcile myself with this approach and though I struggled on for a few more years I ultimately knew it was only a matter of time. 

So I make my decision and I am successful. Not sure there was any fight to talk me out of my decision. I was part of the old guard with my hippy dippy lefty ideas of rehabilitation whose approach did not chime with new type of agile flexible civil servant that central government were keen to cultivate. I was too stuck in my ways, too wedded to my area of specialism (even though that's what attracted them to me in the first place). I needed to be happy to work not only on offender management, but be able to apply the same said skills to any other policy area from dangerous dogs to noise abatement. No that's not why I joined this outfit in the first instance. It was to work with offenders only. I just wasn't a 'civil' enough civil servant, but I guessed that was no bad thing in the end. 

But things have now changed. That confident and empowered person is now facing an even bigger challenge than not having a job. The challenge now is to stay alive and everything about the job with all its trials and tribulations pale into insignificance. I no longer care if there is a system of 'payment by results' or 'payment in magic beans'. I no longer feel the need to forge another path away from the 'rehabilitation revolution'. Frankly I couldn't give a shit if the 'rehabilitation revolution' was more of a WI tea party than a Boston tea party. Nothing matters against the backdrop of cancer. I just needed to free up all the space that was cluttered up with this irrelevant crap. I needed to use that space to concentrate my mind on the road ahead. Basically I didn't want to die. I wasn't ready to die (if you ever really are ready for death). There was too many many things I wanted to do, to experience and to live for - my family being the most important. Therefore things had to give in order for me to beat the cancer and the job was the easiest one to go. As an old boss loved to say in his irritating 'I'm one of you' tones he loved to put on when everyone else thought him nothing like us and basically a complete tosser - "It's a no-brainer!"  God I still shudder when I hear that phrase all these years on.

So it has been agreed that I can't leave sooner than the agreed leave date of March 31st. However my two line managers (yes I said 2 - I will leave you to decide whether it's because I generate so much work that I need 2 or I am so unmanageable that 1 isn't enough!) have both agreed that I can 'work' from home which really means if I want to I can, but no-one expects too much. So for all my moaning about work in the end things came good. I was effectively being paid throughout my chemotherapy which in itself was a huge relief. I still wonder how people get through this without having any financial safety net. I also, now out the other side of treatment, wonder how people keep working through it. But that's a subject for another post. So I am grateful to my ex-employers for making this easier for me and providing me with the space and time with no pressure to get through it. 

I arrive outside my offices near Victoria. I haven't been back into this building since the day before my appointment for my test results. It feels so strange. I left this building just under a month ago hoping against all odds that I would have been breezing back in the next day with good news and that it had all be a lot of fuss about nothing. But that wasn't the case and now I had to go in and face all those people who albeit had been kind and well wishing in their messages to me would still see me through a different lens. I would now be the one they pitied, thanked god they weren't or indeed were unable to make eye contact or pretend everything was ok and not talk about it. I didn't want to be that person. I didn't need nor want their or anyone else's pity. I just wanted to be acknowledged and then left alone to get on with clearing my desk and leaving this old world behind. I'm really not trying to appear unkind or ungrateful. I remember how awkward I felt when two of my dear friends (and work colleagues) came back to work after their respective bouts with cancer (sorry not a great term) about what to say or how to treat a person. There are no rules and even if there where you'd bound to get it wrong because we are all individuals who deal with things in different ways. Cancer makes that no different. If anything, like the disease itself, no two cancers are ever the same. Even if they have the same name they can respond differently to treatment. This is no different. I feel a bit sorry for my colleagues because in a way it's so much easier for me being the one with cancer than it is for them having to respond to it (again a subject for another post). In a way the recently diagnosed cancer 'patient' (sorry another crap term) is being a bit hard to please or at least I was. I didn't want pity or over the top sympathy, but I also didn't want it not to be acknowledged and be the 'elephant in the room' that everyone skirts around, but nobody mentions. So my colleagues were effectively doomed if they did or doomed if they didn't. Still I never confessed there being any logic to it. I have never been a logical person and a bit of cancer certainly wasn't going to change that!

The ride in the lift to the fourth floor on that day was one of the most sad and anxiety-ridden journeys I have had to take because I knew that this was it. Goodbye to the old familiar comfortable yet infuriarating life to a new uncertain, terrifying and unknown life. This wasn't how it was meant to end. I was meant to be going out in a blaze of glory, wisecracking my way to the pub to my leaving-do with an envious entourage in tow wishing they had the balls to have done this too. It was, however, clearly not going to be this way (not sure it would have been the other way either, but do I get blogging license, you know like poetic licence?). The reality is that I am scuttling in and out and trying to be as wallpaper-like as I can possibly be which me being me is quite frankly ridiculous and nigh on impossible. Still that is my aim. In and out in a pincer-like fashion. Very SAS. So low key that I would hardly be noticed and people would question if I had even been there. Well that's the approach I am taking in my deluded mind.

So I swipe my card to get in, but of course I haven't been here for awhile so some security thing has kicked in. Someone I vaguely know let's me in and as I am holding my pass it gets stuck in the door as it closes pulling me backwards. I am going one way but the rest of me is being pulled back to door. In trying to untangle myself I drop my handbag and all the contents spill onto the floor. Somebody comes through the door and my pass springs free sending me hurtling forwards. I then scramble around gathering up the contents of my bag. I can't quite believe how un-SAS this has turned out and I have yet to say good morning to anyone! I hurriedly pick up snotty tissues, multi-coloured tampons packets in various sizes (a girl needs to be prepared for any emergency - sorry probably too much information) along with a lot of other useless debris that makes up the contents of my bag. I get to my feet and try not to make eye contact with anyone. Thankfully I don't work with these people on this side of the office. Thank god I choose the other door to come in and make my village idiot entrance. 

As I walk into the office and spy my colleagues I know that it is going to be alright. The queen of melodrama that I am has built this into something more than it every would have been. I seem to forget that I work in an organisation where banter and ridicule is the order of the day and just because I go and get  cancer isn't going to change that. Within an hour it feels like I haven't been away and the wisecracks mixed with the genuine empathy of my colleagues make the next two days so much more easier than I could have imagined. I think what I needed to remember is though the world is changing ever so quickly for me its not the case for everyone else. And that's the way that I want it to stay. I never want any of them to feel the way I did now and facing what I had to face. 

Don't get me wrong there were some difficult and uncomfortable encounters, but those were with people who I don't really know, but again are trying to be helpful and in their embarrassment feel the need to say something however inappropriate or ridiculous it may sound. I know because I have done it myself and am sure will continue to do it in the future. The difficulty is having to manage other people's emotions and responses to this news (again a subject for another post as just too complex to discuss here) especially when for the person experiencing it you have managed all the negative and difficult emotions over and over again whilst breaking the news to different people at different times that in the end you are completely drained and become quite numb and unemotional to it. Cancer becomes just a word.

So I did it. I got through the two days pretty unscathed. I had a quieter send off than I had hoped but that was okay. It was with people who really wanted to be with me and me with them. I said my goodbyes and was back into the unknown world ahead of me. The comfort of the world of 9 to 5 was now behind me and for all the years I was desperate to leave I am now feeling even more alone and lost than ever. I don't have the comfort of knowing what's ahead and standing at Victoria station waiting for my train I am nostalgic for my previous life, the life before cancer with its 9 to 5 routine. But in the words of Dolly Parton, "what a way to make a living" and maybe in time I would see that cancer saved me from that way of making a living. But right now I shed some tears, as quietly and as unassumingly as I can on a packed train, to my lost life, career disappointments and unmet ambitions and scurry as quickly as I can back to my new comfort zone - home. 

Your knee bones connected to your - thigh bone, your perineum is connected to your...???

I am now in possession of my chemotherapy treatment schedule which consists of eight sessions in total with a two week gap between them. After the stress of trying to get any dates at all this year I am now holding a piece of paper that maps out the next sixteen weeks or four months of my life. It doesn't really matter which way I chose to say it its still adds up to a quarter of the year ahead and this is just the first part of the whole treatment process. It is, however, the part I am most scared of and frightened to begin. However by having these dates I keep reminding myself that I can begin to fight this disease head on.

Before chemotherapy begins I have to have an induction. The word 'induction' always conjures up to me visions of starting a new job and you are being 'induced' into the ways of the company you are working for. The terminology feels strange and out of place, but as this all starts to take shape and become very real it's actually not that odd at all. I've left my job and actually fighting this cancer and concentrating on getting better has taken it's place and become my new job. Therefore I need to be 'induced' into the ways of this new company - the cancer centre - and all its different departments -chemotherapy, surgery, radiotherapy. Starting firstly with the chemotherapy suite where I will effectively begin my 'probation' and if I do well there will move onto the next stage. However if I am basically a bit rubbish and don't show any aptitude or initiative in this new role my 'probation' may need to be extended - something I am very keen to avoid. I have proven myself in the past to be a quick learner and adaptable to new environments so why should this be any different to my other jobs? I suppose the big difference is there is much more at stake here but I am always up for a challenge and this is going to be one hell of one. I need to be shit hot in this post because I want to move on up this particular career ladder as quickly and as well as I possibly can and show what I'm made of.

I can't start as quickly as my oncologist would like me to but I have been booked into my induction a few weeks prior to my chemotherapy starting. My lovely friend who came with me to get my results insists on coming with me to my induction. She doesn't want me to face this alone and knows me well enough to know that I will have a hundred and one questions for which I will forget all the answers they will have given me. I will need to have someone to turn to for affirmation or at least reassurance and she wants to and is the best person for this. She's my voice of reason and doesn't put up with my melodramatic bullshit or tendency for the melancholy when up against it. She says it like it is and I need that right now. 

I have asked if I could have chemo on the Tuesday of each cycle. This is because I am at home with my son on Mondays and he is at nursery on the other days. It's also far enough from the weekend so as not to impact too much upon it. This is all worked out with logic and a real sense of planning which for those of you who know me know are not my strongest traits. I am sure when I spring into your mind it's not alongside the adjectives 'logical' and 'methodical'. Yet here I am masquerading as both these things, but how quickly this is dispelled. In fairness to myself the logic wasn't flawed. It was the lack of knowledge and experience of the situation that was. It would make absolute sense to plan it in order to cause as little disruption as possible, but of course not knowing what lay ahead of me it was foolhardy to think in these terms. Anyway as always I am running ahead of myself. All will be revealed later, but at this stage, right here, right now, I am off to my induction which falls on a Tuesday as will all my subsequent treatment dates (on a bi weekly basis). 

The traffic on the way to the centre is so busy due to a number of roadworks all going on simultaneously in that annoying way they do and what should be a ten minute ride from my friend's house to the hospital has taken nearly half an hour already. My friend calls them to explain we are on our way and although they are very understanding and I gather that others have called with the same problem, my anxiety levels are still rising  We eventually arrive at the hospital to encounter another delay - one which I will soon get use to and become more ofay with as the months progress - the queue for the subsidised cancer centre car park. Spaces are like gold dust and patients and their drivers will queue patiently to be let in for this £1 parking space in the middle of Brighton where on-street parking is limited and costly and the hospital NCP parking a complete rip-off. So I experience my first car park queue. As daunting as it looks when you arrive it does actually move fairly quickly. We all know the score so we try to get in and out after treatment as quickly as possible to free up those premium spaces for the next 'customer'. Some are a bit cheeky (myself included) and maybe slip in a swift coffee or lunch after treatment, but personally for what you're going through the odd pleasures are truly well deserved and depending on how you react to treatment few and far between. 

This is the first time I have ever seen or been to the Sussex Cancer Centre. I wonder how I have never noticed it before. The signage is clear and there is nothing obstructing it but yet in all the years I have visited the hospital for appointments for myself, my mother, visiting friends or relatives I have never ever seen this building. What I really think it is that I have quite obviously seen this building before. It's on the road that leads up to A&E which I have visited infrequently over the years. My god mother and her husband lived in sheltered accommodation right opposite the entrance so I would have walked past it when I visited them yet I cannot remember ever seeing it. Suddenly it's there. Big as life and twice as daunting. There's no mystery to what goes on inside there. It's writ large over the front entrance. But I know the real reason why it's never registered. It's because it's the building nobody wants or chooses to go in. There is nothing inside those doors that would tempt me in. There isn't anything sparkly or shiny to get my attention. No buy one get one free, no half price sale or even a good old fashioned full price have to have it allure. That's why I haven't noticed it because it has had nothing to do with me. I'm not in their demographic. I am not their typical customer. There 'niche' appeal was not to my taste. Its a building you choose not to acknowledge because it means nothing personally to you. You may know people, been close to people who have had cancer. But its abstract because its still not you and anyway what's the odds it ever will happen to you. About the same as winning the lottery? Well fuck aren't I the lucky one. Actually the odds are a lot higher but until you're there you don't know that and you believe it's something that happens to other people. Well I certainly did. 

But it isn't happening to someone else. I am standing here outside of this building and its happening to me. Suddenly all I can see is this building and what it has to offer is more important, more sought after, more coveted than anything shiny and sparkly with cut price tags attached. Even though I am scared shitless I know this building stores all the goodies this girl needs to keep on going in this world and that is more important than any retail therapy could provide right now.  

It feels like the longest walk to the reception of the chemotherapy suite but once there I wish it had been longer. Not because of how bad it was when I arrived. Far from it. It was welcoming and actually peaceful and calm considering what those waiting were going through. The atmosphere was quite light and upbeat. It was better than any hospital or doctor's waiting room I had ever had to wait in. No. I just wanted to string out this bit for a while longer. To suspend the inevitable and what was to follow. To walk through the doors of the chemotherapy suite to what would be my new 'place of work' for the next four months. 

My name was called along with a number of other people - my fellow inductees. There are about six or us and we are all accompanied by someone. It's mostly women, but there is one man who I sit next to. They are also appear to be older than me. They all have different forms of cancer as we find out. The one thing we all have in common and is etched across our faces is that we are all anxious and undoubtedly scared. Even if we think we are composed we would all be really crap at poker!

While waiting to be seen I take a look around the room. It isn't what I expected at all. I imagined it to be a lot more clinical and more like a hospital ward, but it isn't. There are no beds just very comfy looking reclining chairs. The room is a light pastel kind of blue which though not my cup of tea is quite calming and relaxing and there are some interesting prints on the walls too. It's still quite early so there are only a couple of other people here bar us inductees and a couple are hooked up to IV drips. If it wasn't for those drips and trays of drugs we could be all waiting for a manicure or a pedicure as really doesn't have that clinical feel about which is a credit to those who work there. The ability to make a place that is clearly very clinical not feel so sterile and clinical is, in my eyes, phenomenal. 

 A nurse sits down with me to go through the respective paperwork asking a number of questions. She also needs me to have a number of tests to ensure that I am physically able to endure the chemotherapy such as an ECG to make sure my ticker can stand up to the strain of the treatment and another test were I have to take a swab from the inside of my mouth, my nostril and my perineum to see if I have MRSA screening test which ascertain whether I am a MRSA carrier. The first two parts are easy enough. She then gives me a test tube and she asks me to 'brush' the perineum with the swab and put it straight into the test tube. I smile and she guides me towards the toilet. I am hesitant and feeling quite stupid as I am wracking my brain to unearth some deeply buried information from old biology lessons which might shed some light onto where exactly my perineum is. If I'm being guided to somewhere private it's got to be in my privates region but where oh where is it. I haven't said a word. I am just smiling inanely as I shut the toilet door and lock it. She must have seen the confusion on my face as I close the door as she says something about the nobbly ridge between... but I don't hear the rest as she says it quite quickly and I'm not really paying attention and the bathroom door has just shut and I don't want to open it up to ask her as feel I should know where it is. Fuck why didn't I bring my phone then I could have googled it or at least phoned a friend. I can't believe that I never paid attention in school as quite clearly it's something ever body knows and why hasn't it registered in my psyche over the last 42 years of my life. Quite clearly I have had absolutely no use for it in that time. What seems like an age passes but probably is only a couple of seconds whilst I hunt for my perineum or something that looks like a perineum that I could brush a swab against. I try and try to hold onto those last words as if they are a clue to where the treasure is buried and my 'perineum' is the gold. But the only nobbly ridge thing that springs into mind is my clitoris. But it can't be. When did it change name and why didn't I know? Maybe it's its full Latin title is something like clitoris perineumus. What again seems like another age passes and there is a tap on the door and the voice of the nurse asking, "Are you alright in there?" I am mortified but can't keep up this charade any longer. I imagine everyone waiting for the induction to begin whilst I have swabbed my entire body in the hope that I've come anywhere close to my perineum. I sheepishly unlock the door and before I can even say a word the nurse says, "it's the area between your vagina and anus". I need no further guidance and as quickly as possible shut the door and do what I need to do. 

There are a few inquisitive looks from my fellow inductees as I return but I try not to make eye contact with anyone. Soon after the induction begins. I had planned to regale with what happens, but will tell you more in my next post as frankly just reliving the search for my perineum has well and truly exhausted me and undoubtedly provided you with more information than you really needed or wanted to know. And before you all get smug I'd like to know how many of you knew where the perineum is because it certainly wasn't a fact on the tip of my tongue. No you fool, I hear you shout, it's not on the tip of your tongue its between your...but I've already shut the door again. I think it's best left right where it is. Out of sight and most definitely out of mind...