Shhhhhh.....don't tell anyone but...

I feel ok.. *looking around furtively*. No seriously, I really do feel normal and I am absolutely bamboozled and bouleverseed by it..It is utterly delicious, life-affirming and invigorating to come out of chemo, to cook myself a three food groups meal and to eat it without a hint of nausea. That is why you have to be so quiet because I am worried that whoever or whatever had it in for me last week has gone to bed at last and I don't want them to spot me smiling - post chemo!

Now I know that this could all go horribly wrong and that my condition like Sisyphus' stone could just tilt a little and lose momentum and start hurtling downhill again, but I am, in this pocket, this little hiatus, deeply grateful and thankful for the relief I have been given.

It has been a long day. My blood was taken at 8.45 and then into the doctor at around 9.30. The tumour has shrunk again (hurray!) but she didn't measure it this time so no definite specifications. Then we had the medications piled on. I know you thought it was your computer that made that annoying rattle? I am so sorry - it is actually my stomach and, and this is a provisional, at this moment in time and, they seem to be working... (said very softly indeed...)

Up to the chemo suite and a long wait to get in. A terrible reaction to the first anti emetic which nearly made me faint and the chemo was called off for an hour as I recalled myself to this planet. Started again at 3pm and my skin had a reaction to one of the chemo drugs so the cannula/drip had to be replaced. The second vein didn't catch well, so that one was removed and a third had to be done in my left hand... From then on in, things went well.... and I left at 6pm.

And so far I feel blessed. Whilst I was in the chemo suite, a man at the end clearly having chemo, suddenly fell ill and the nurses were unable to revive him so had to call the emergency paramedics. It turned out that he had had a small stroke and was eventually wheeled out in a bed, certain only that he wasn't leaving the hospital that night. He had had a reaction to one of the drugs. How awful to have to deal with the spectre of cancer and chemo and now the ghost of heart attacks too. I still have much to be thankful for...

Minerva

Gadget Girl

If life seems jolly rotten
There's something you've forgotten
And that's to laugh and smile and dance and sing.
When you're feeling in the dumps
Don't be silly chumps
Just purse your lips and whistle - that's the thing.

And...always look on the bright side of life...
Always look on the light side of life...



The only consolation in the whole of the past week has been my upgraded phone. As I pay thousands of pounds for unused airtime and messages, I thought that I would use the whole of my allowance and last week, I did. I blew the whole thing on a widget that would put a rampant rabbit tea maker to shame! It does email, messages, phone, documents and fits (just) within my hands.

It is so exciting. I am actually quite male in the way I embrace technology and all things 'geeky'. I built my home computer myself, I can program web pages and can even set my video recorder for a month in advance without a ten year old being in the same house, so, as you can well understand, I was really excited about my new treat.

Every day last week, I ran down to the reception at school hoping for a glimpse of my newly delivered phone but it didn't come...it didn't arrive.. Then the day from hell Wedesday came and the day dealing with insurers came and finally, it arrived Friday.... Unpacked Friday evening as soon as I got home and a delicious time spent pressing buttons, playing games, sorting documents, and typing silly inane messages like ' I've got a new phone' but which came out as 'AVE hot a nes phone...' which wasn't at all impressive..

Today, the teacher next door to my room was ill and we had a supply teacher (hail, the brave!) and I was helping him out. Just for a couple of minutes but needless to say, when I returned to my desk, my glorious gadget, my wonderful widget had disappeared to be sold, no doubt, at a huge cut down price in the nearby shopping centre by kids at lunchtime.

And you know what? After the first heave of tears, I started laughing.. Yes, as a superstitious ninny, that makes three awful events,cancer, the burglary, my phone and now? Now I can get on and have a wonderful day tomorrow ...or not...as when I open the diary, there staring back at me sits one solitary word *chemo*.

You have to laugh, don't you?



Minerva



Some things in life are bad
They can really make you mad
Other things just make you swear and curse.
When you're chewing on life's gristle
Don't grumble, give a whistle
And this'll help things turn out for the best...

And...always look on the bright side of life...
Always look on the light side of life...


words and music by Eric Idle

I need to write this...

I quite understand that many of you don't want to hear it, that many of you champion the bravery when I can show it and the desire to fight it when I can. The fact is, today I can't.

I am sitting here, tears pouring down my face. I don't want this. I am not strong enough to fight what life is currently throwing at me. What with the burglary, my constant fatigue, my sense that my life as it was is over and that I have chemo on Wednesday which, if it is anything like last time, threatens to take over my strength and life for two weeks, is just too much. I can't do it.. I feel like a toddler, stamping my feet, shaking out my bottom lip and threatening the world. I CAN'T FACE IT...

This life is not my life. Someone has got it all horribly mixed up. I was not meant to have this life of dependence, of misery and of constant sickness. I would respectfully like to complain to someone please, to wrap it up in its original wrappings and send it back by the recorded delivery it came in. Where is my life? Where is my controlled, happy life of just three months ago when I felt sexy, healthy, warm and although not always happy, I did feel myself, I felt my own skin, my own body and my own mind. Now, now, I am living somebody else's life, someone who is not Minerva but some twisted, pale, echo of her. Who is this person I see in the mirror? Whose hands type away at this keyboard? Who is she?

Where am I? Where is my life?

Minerva

The week turns

from the past, to the present and on, into the future. So too my thoughts. The last three days have been a blur of administration, long phone calls and paper finding, copying and shuffling. Why is it that despite being a victim of a crime, I feel that I myself am being accused of one on the phone to insurance companies? 'Explain your actions between such and such an hour to such and such an hour...' I didn't say that I went to the lavatory during that time - did they want that amount of detail? They did say, leave nothing out... *sigh*

The present? A beautiful crisp winter's day over London, an early start to the town where my gorgeous girls are at school.. An insipid burger but lively talk all round about 'tuck', 'dorms' and 'matrons'. They are living an Enid Blyton novel. Hurrah! And on to macaroons for tea.. Back to London full of bubbled news and warm hugs. They are still scared of Mummy 'bald' so I wore the hat all day and had surreptitious scratches when it just got too itchy. I am so used to not wearing a hat now, that it feels strange to wear it like that all through meals and indoors. Still, they need the time and I will give it to them...

And now, my mind turns to the future. On Wednesday, the whole damned wheel turns again. Chemo starts once more. I have half the artillery of the hospital on my side now and that will, I pray, help alleviate the awful symptoms I had last time. All I have to do at the moment is picture myself walking down that corridor to the 'chemo suite' and the familiar bile starts to rise in my throat and the saliva to flow in my mouth.

I try to look at the postive. This is the fourth treatment of eight. On the 13th of December I shall have an ultrasound to find the true size of the tumour and on Wednesday I shall know if it has shrunk at all again. But it doesn't stop the anxiety and the fear. Now I know the meaning of true courage - be scared sick and walk in anyway....

Minerva

Shadows...

I was tired today and came back from work determined to rest. Dumping all my paraphanalia in the middle of the sitting room, I decided not to take my wireless lap top up to bed as that would mean surfing the waves of the internet rather than delving the seas of dreams.

I sleep... a noise. I wake up and see a dark shadow at the entrance to my bedroom silhouetted against the dark dusk of the window behind with a maglite bluish torch beaming into the room. "Mummy?" I say sleepily, and the figure turns, and claps down the stairs. Befuddled, wondering why my mother was worried about disturbing me, I get out of bed, and wander down. At the hall, the table drawer is out, the kitchen window is open and as I turn towards the front door, I hear the lock turned. I realise that they have taken my keys and I hear my car start. They are getting away with my stuff in MY car. And then it hits me. I am a prisoner, I have been robbed, and I have come within 4 feet of an invader. I cry, break down like a baby with shock, and call my sister in law who tells me to call the police.

Their stolid air of masculinity brought me back to earth as they called the number of the car to disembodied crackly voices. They asked me if I wanted an ambulance to check me over, and I, witty as ever, replied, "No thanks, I already have cancer - they may find something else."

Now reality has descended. The locks are changed. I have company at home tonight as I don't want to leave my own house.

I have shadows inside and outside, shadows that crawl, creep and try to destroy me. They may batter at my body, at my self-confidence, and at my sense of calm, but they cannot destroy me...

(But please, don't let anything else happen...)

Minerva

If you prick us.....

I don't really believe in complementary medicine or treatments. I have always felt that they were a bit too 'alternative' for me together with birkenstock sandals, organic tofu and rice milk. Just one hippy step too far. Just give me a handful of pills please and I'll be fine and up to now, I have to say that bottle of manufactured artificial drugs has worked for me. When I smoked I suffered from an attack of sinusitis each Winter, and of course, I have my chronic depression which is in remission and has been for 5 years, but APART from those, I don't get ill. I don't get colds, or flu, or 'bugs' either stomach or other which fly around school.

Until of course, I get cancer, and even then, to be honest I didn't feel particularly ill. In fact, it would be fair to say that when I found out I did have cancer I was feeling the best I had felt for ages. My hair looked great, I had finally sorted out my fat/thin/fat/thin schizophrenia that my body has suffered from since a teenager and was genuinely happy with the physical person I had turned out to be. Then SLAM! The giant cement mixer driven by a mad pugilist hit me, and it hit me hard. My last chemo was awful. It sapped my confidence, took away my illusion of control, and has completely wiped me out physically and emotionally. Today I talked of my fears three times to three different people and each time, I wept. I am so scared of next week.

So, in an attempt to regain control and because these wonderful treatments are offered free to breast cancer patients by a wonderful charity called The Haven, I have signed up for three courses of acupuncture. To be completely honest, it was one of those, 'sign up for everything' moments and forget about it until the day comes. Today was the day and I deliberated through most of the morning whether or not I should cancel but in the interest of cynical science decided to go, and besides, I reasoned, I can always write about it in my blog afterwards. I mean, you MUST be getting tired of the 'I'm so sorry for myself' posts by now.

In I went. Met by a short stocky man who looked remarkably 'mainstream' apart from his shirt which looked quite like my floor after chemo I was encouraged. Encouraged, that is, until he opened his mouth and talked to me about 'energies, chi, matter turning to other energies'. Bamboozled a bit by this, I just sat and watched and was captivated by his hands which twisted and slipped through the air like question marks. They seemed to be dancing to a different song to the one I was listening to which, to be honest, mainly consisted of, 'where are the needles and are they going to hurt when you put them into my back." Suddenly, he took me by surprise and held my hands. Well, having not had any kind of intimacy (ahem!) for over three months, I almost jumped into the air with the energy flowing through his fingers. Amazing how intimate his fingers stroking my wrists felt and how, all at once, I felt shy, gauche and awkward.

Then, my turn. I lay face down on the bed and he gently touched my back to find the pressure spots. He pressed vertebrae in turn telling me that he was checking which vertebrae were which.. At this point, I was ready to turn heel and run, or rather, I would have had I not been wearing just a bra and trousers. As it was currently a mere very chilly 4 degrees in London, I really didn't want to freeze my boobs off outside so I stayed still, just. I mean, this man wants to stick needles in my back and he doesn't even know which vertebrae are which? HELLO, paralysis hijacked my mind as I pictured a bald, one-breasted dribbler in a wheelchair going into school the following day.

Then the miracle happened. The needles went in, and as each needle pierced my skin, it felt as though a river of energy flowed from each point to the next. Eight needles were placed in all and the only vaguely uncomfortable one was the one in my shoulder, the seat of most of my tension, of my heart and the fount of my emotions was how he put it. He then put his hands to my shoulders and around each of the pressure points and like iron filings that thrill to an unseen magnet this built up energy, this stiffness in my joints flowed into his hands. I cannot explain it more clearly than that, but that is what happened. As his light fingers tiptoed down my spine, the energy flow streamed from each needle through to his fingers, one by one, out of my muscles, and body into the ether between us. Afterwards, I felt rested, quiet emotionally and physically and relaxed in my muscles and in my mind.

‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’
William Shakespeare

Minerva

It's been a week..

and I am finally starting to feel myself again. The black humour is coming out - yes, I did tell the mortgage cold caller last night that I wasn't sure I would live long enough to pay the full term and he rang off with alacrity. And I giggled... How sick is that?!

I am also booking social events this week. The theatre with a girlfriend on Tuesday, two girlfriends including the wonderful Evil Minx last night (and she is just as wonderful in the flesh as she is on her blog). Off to see the brother for lunch and with that a spectre which hasn't come up before. My nephew, a mere toddler, has a cold. Now ordinarily this would be of little import but with a compromised immune system I have to stay clear of all germs, illnesses and diseases for any kind of infection could be life threatening resulting in Neutropenia sepsis which is really really bad news ....I have always been lucky enough never to have to think about such trivialities before as for some unknown genetic aberration, I used to have a built in immunity to any kind of low level virus.

It is a bit of a shock to have to think about these things in one's thirties rather than at the age of ninety four when I thought that gene would kick in. Just like the cold. It is strange to what extent one feels it when one has little or no hair. I wear a woolly cap in bed now and socks! Just as well to be honest, that I am single because if the lack of hair and the one boob didn't drive the lucky man away, the warm pyjamas, the housecoat dressing gown, the socks and hat in bed just might... Intimations of Mortality indeed.

Looking at the diary today I realise too that it is only 10 days until the next session of chemotherapy. 10 days to feeling rubbish again, 10 days to vomiting up my guts once more... At the thought of it, I feel the familiar, back of the throat nausea threatening to disturb my new serenity. As I am currently teaching Shakespeare to my Year 9s, I find my mind has been rather taken over by quotations (Tony, please note...) GO! 'Never shake thy gory locks at me', to quote Macbeth shouting at another ghost.
Or maybe more appropriately, ' present fears
are less than horrible imaginings.'

Or perhaps an even better way is to think 10 days of feeling myself again, 10 days to enjoy myself, 10 days to make the most of my life before my routine is, yet again, temporarily put on hold..and you know what? I really want to know if that tumour has shrunk again....

'Hence horrible shadow!
Unreal mockery, hence...'

Minerva

If I could

do away with one invention of our modern age, the telephone would be candidate number one. I hate its interruption, the dichotomy that immediately springs into my mind every time it rings, namely whether to finish the task that I am working on, or to answer, lose my train of thought completely and be sucked into a conversation that I don't need.

Strangely enough, I have always hated it. Ever since those cold corridors at boarding school, stone clad, so one couldn't sit comfortably queueing to be able to speak to the familiar voice on the other end of the phone until the grunting, tutting and talking in the rest of the line meant one had to hang up, tearful, and return to the dormitory.

I loathe the way it demands attention, that as soon as it trills its greeting I feel I must rush for it only to have some extremely polite young man or woman ask me if I am interested in being a show customer for some double glazing company... Of course, now, I have the ultimate excuse and I am never afraid to use it... 'I'm so sorry', I say, disingenuously, 'but I have just learnt I have cancer so have much bigger things on my mind.' That way, I get an apology and, strangely enough, they don't call me back again, ever. Wicked? Oh yes, completely, but it all comes back to looking on the bright side of this disease.

Cancer where is thy sting? I am too busy mocking you to feel it....



Minerva

********************update*****************************************

I realise that a lot of my friends and family now think that this post is directed at them - it isn't. I do have a dislike of the phone but please leave a message, send a text or send an email. I love to know that I am thought of but am often in bed and just can't run for the phone. I will call back (eventually) I promise...

Minerva

It may be cold outside,

but there is a big, black cloud in here. A lot of you may not know but I am bi-polar, diagnosed late, in my thirties when I had two major depressive episodes following my father's diagnosis and subsequent death from lung cancer. I mention this because I feel the storm clouds moving in over my head. I can't seem to stop the tears slipping down my cheeks at the fear: the fear of returning for my next chemo given that this one was so bad; the fear of losing such a key part of my anatomy; the fear that actually I am a victim not the hero that I want to be.

I wept down the phone to my doctor today as I have been having such bad reflux and insomnia. I am exhausted; every time I get up to get something, I feel like a disappointed child scraping at the bottom of her glass sundae dish. That discordant trill echoes my emptiness, the feeling that I have no more energy to give, no more emotional energy to find. I am depleted, as empty as a New Year's popper the morning after, tired, bedraggled, and a poor copy of the original spark.

What can I do? My frustration and anger at this process are mounting, my body is protesting its load and my emotions are boiling over... and the cancer? Why, the cancer just keeps putting out its tendrils, dancing over the picture of my tiredness, and rubbing its cancerous hands with gnarled, twisted pleasure...

I'll be back....

Minerva

The chill of Winter

blew into London this morning. The weak pale sun lit up its silver frosty trails like hundreds of snails' streams as the cold crept in. For the first time, the windows of my attic room were blurred on the inside with condensation. Much like my head, to be honest, as the insomnia still pursues me into this week.

Every night for the last three nights I lie there, wrapped in a duvet like a mummy and I listen to the sniffles and even breathing of my dog, lying at the foot of my bed. I so envy the way he quickly finds his dreams whereas I, like a reader of a lively novel, linger on the sights and sounds of the characters of the day, and cannot, unlike the dog, just close it and move on.

Tiredness and solitude have become my daily companions. Much like the disciples on the road to Emmaus, they are with me, in me, by me, even though their physical manifestations are yet to be seen, they are felt. My eyes are gritty with lack of rest, my muscles ache from rounds with insomnia and my mind's warriors ready to put down their spears and leave their garrison open to doubts, insecurities and worries.

There is, however, always hope. Hope, on a white horse riding through fields of red poppies and corn, trailing the seductive sound of sleep in its wake, lowering my tired, eyelashless eyes with her long elegant fingers and wrapping my hairless, unnatural flesh within her borrowed robes of feathers and down.

Come, complete me, and make me whole.

Come, complete me and let me rest.

Minerva

Of Autumn Leaves....

Cold, sharp sunshine curled round the eaves of my attic room as I woke up this morning. It glittered in the glass and shimmered across my little yellow house in the heart of London. Time for a walk, the scarf wrapped around the neck, the indoor hat to protect my spiky scalp from the cold replaced for a more robust model and the new, dark greatcoat snuggled around me, I set off.

The sunshine was having a party in the patch of grass I call a park around the corner. It danced through the trees, flicking the brown, green, yellow leaves to the floor like confetti and the dog, doing his impression of a remote control hoover, and myself shuffled through them. They are so beautiful, autumn leaves with their russets, reds, golds, yellows and browns. They wrapped their warmth around me like a bowl of oatmeal and crunched and squelched beneath my feet. I loved kicking them up into the air, my own echo of the wind's joy in the cool of Autumn.

The symbolism, naturally, was too much to ignore. The glorification of leaves falling from the trees, Wordsworth's 'diurnal round' echoes in my own body as my hair still falls to the wooden floors in my house. The trees like me, face the winter boldly, baldly, ready for the onslaught, their reserves brewing beneath the surface fortifying their new green shoots for next Spring to coincide with the emergence of my flowing thick mane of hair.

For now, my feet and the trees' roots are buried in our memories of this year but soon, we shall face the Spring and with it, our regeneration...

Minerva

And just when I thought it was the end...

a light came into view. I stopped the vomiting, I could eat, I could drink and it stayed in me... Slowly, my sense of humour, and perspective returned. I can get through this.

The walls of that awful well receded to be replaced by open fields swaying with sheaves of corn and sunshine. The chemo tunnel has receded for another three weeks and my number one item on my agenda next appointment with him is 'Why am I throwing up?'. Original huh? Snappy in its own inimitable way....

Thank you to all of you who were so kind on the last post. I cannot express how much your wishes sent virtually through a keyboard and monitor meant to me.

So now I am clear; clear for two and a half weeks before this awful cycle begins again. Tomorrow it is back to work or rather, I shall see how strong I feel. This cycle has depleted me of a substantial part of my energy and my spirit and that must be replenished before I begin to give again...

Sorry to those of you whose blogs I have been unable to visit in the last few days - I shall try to make it up soon.

Minerva

I can't do this...

It is all feeling just too much for me. I was sick over 5 times yesterday and the day before and couldn't keep down any fluid or food. I have no energy and just want it all to be over. Yes, it is shrinking the cancer, but you know what? At what cost?

I am at the bottom of a slimy walled well and although there is a trickle of light in the distance, the amount of effort required to climb these walls just seems too much. I ache from the injections, I am weak from the lack of food, a filthy headache from the lack of fluid and I just don't want to fight any more.

I am so fed up, so near to packing it in... I thought I was brave, I had no idea what this would take out of me...

Minerva

What a day...

Woke up this morning feeling better and was hopeful - hope which lasted until five minutes after I took my anti-sickness drug and hope which swilled around my sick bowl.. That was the theme of the day - try a little liquid or food and five minutes later, I was staring at it again. My headache which started last night grew all this morning until I got worried about dehydration and decided to call my doctor. He told me to come in and be under observation for 24 hours and rehydrate. Given my worries about MRSA which, I am sure, would make mincemeat of an embattled immune system I asked him if there was any other route I could take.

As the district nurse was coming round to see me to give me injections to raise my neutrophil count, we agreed that I should abide by a 'health professional's judgement. She saw me, her assistant gave me the injection, (without swabbing the site with alcohol first...) Has anyone out there EVER had an injection without someone swabbing the site first? She said that I was only slightly dehydrated, that I should call my GP and get them to prescribe me suppositories... Call made at 1.30 pm. Return call from Doctor at 4.30 pm... I was, by this time, unable to read, unable to even put my glasses on from the pain in my head.

My mother, oh wonderful mother, managed to pick up my prescription and then I managed some water and some toast - the first nutrients of the day....

I am really surprised. The other chemos in comparison were much easier than this one with this continued vomiting... I just hope that tomorrow is better..
Still not down though - just think what it is doing to that awful cancer if it is doing this to me....

Minerva

Premise proved m'lud.

Yes, today was equally bad to yesterday in terms of physical abuse. I vomited again, (never done that before) and actually felt fairly dehydrated, headaches, painful neck and the like but my spirit never flagged.

So that just goes to prove, doesn't it, that my previous premise was right. As long as the spirit doesn't slow down, I, Minerva, can cope with just about anything.... and in that vein, I am going to put up here a picture that a friend from Australia sent me... No, I don't know him, but that didn't stop him showing me, Minerva, in a wild moment vanquishing cancer....

Thank you for revealing the strength...

Minerva

A glass half empty....

Bad day today... Turned up for chemo feeling nervous about meeting my new doctor and whether I would even be able to have my chemo as my neutrophil level was low last time and I presumed that as it was just acceptable then, it would be lower and hence unacceptable today. Good news - tumour reduced again and my lymph nodes originally the size of a satsuma have gone down to 1cm or rather a hazelnut.. Great news so why am I so unhappy?

I went in to the treatment feeling low, feeling recalcitrant and almost sulky. In reality how silly is that? The chemo is not my enemy; it is the cancer, but I am taking out the aggression on the treatment rather than the cancer itself which in itself isn't healthy. The only good thing about it is the fact that I realise it. I am finding it very hard to regain that same level of positivity in the face of low blood counts, severe nausea and fatigue. My emotions are so close to the surface; today I felt sick during the actual chemo and started weeping with sheer frustration. I also talked to the breast nurse about counselling and started crying again. I veer, like a car on an oily road, between being all powerful and being near tearful collapse, where tears run down my cheeks and I am rendered speechless.

What is wrong with me? I am, with my history of depression, so scared of sinking again and so determined to manage the process but I do find it hard. Hard because I am trying to manage it, hard because I wonder if I am just creating problems where they don't exist, and hard because I just don't have the energy at the moment.

Due to my low neutrophil count I will be having daily GCMF injections for the next three days at home to raise my counts. Sadly, there is NOTHING I can do to raise my neutrophil count; exercise, supplements, rest or any kind of food doesn't help. the positive side of that, though, (see, I am trying) is that there is nothing to berate myself for. It isn't my fault that I have low counts and nothing I can do helps.

I feel terrible. I threw up again today and my throat burns and my mouth stinks. I have really had enough... Being positive today just doesn't seem possible, seems way out of reach like a star that has temporarily hidden behind a cloud. Every time the phone rings, I don't want to answer it. I can't be brave for anyone else today...just honest, and open. This process stinks, this cancer stinks and getting it stinks.

But I do wonder.. How much of this am I responsible for? If, next time, I manage to go in and manage to feel any more positive than I do today, then I am sure that this process will be less exhausting and less difficult than it was today. So I leave this negative and rather depressing post as a marker in the sand. If I try to be deliberately more positive next time, which should be easier given that I now know the new doctor I am working with, will it be easier? Only one little, eensy-weensy problem now.....

How? How can I gather this body, mind, heart together and use the energy constructively when even my normal coping mechanism of hiding under the duvet isn't working?

Minerva

Turning the corner...

Tomorrow, hopefully, the nose of this racehorse turns into the final lap. After tomorrow, it will be three down and three to go. The mud of side effects, tiredness and depression pulls at my ankles as I exhort these tired bones, this tired flesh to face forward. It has been a gruelling six weeks, a six weeks of getting used to ideas that weren't even distant gates on the horizon. 0-60 in six weeks. I have become an expert on cancer, an expert on how I react to it and an expert on how to combine cancer and work... all within so little time..

Now, my nose pulls forward. I smell the scent of the final victory, the clang of the finish gate. This horse is far enough forward that to return now, is the same as to advance. I know that these three fences will be even harder than the first three but I can see the flags waving, I can hear the crowds shouting my name, and the other horses are equally tired. But I have a secret weapon, I have a wonderful crew shouting for me in the stands and with them, I know that with strength of mind, with perseverence and with the teeth clenching guts that got me through childbirth, divorce and moving house, home and career, I can do this.

My body aches, I am tired, dragged down with fatigue but my will, my courage and my intent will get me through.

Minerva

I have a cold...

or rather a sniffle, or a hint of a sniffle with a sore throat. Now normally, this wouldn't even pass for comment but as a patient facing the chemo dragon on Wednesday this becomes rather more important than it might appear. (That reminds me of the warnings on car mirrors...)

Most people know the side effects of chemo; that it attacks fast replicating cells in the body. This is great against the cancer, but also affects other, nebulous, stay-at-home, not-me cells that 'weren't doin' nothing' cells like those of the stomach, the hair, the mouth and the bone marrow. Hence the awful side effects like nausea and vomiting, hair loss, mouth ulcers and a lowered white blood cell count. It is this which is responsible for the most dangerous side effect of all - neutropaenia. The body is unable to fight off infection and therefore any bacterial infection immediately goes into a major life threatening event.

So vigilence is the order of the day. Armed with powders, scarves and hats, I face the future resolutely. Of course, the only problem is that I am psychosomatic about most illnesses. I have already taken my temperature twice in two hours and swear that I am sweating...but I do wonder if that has anything to do with the fact that I have two fleeces on, a scarf, hat and am sitting next to a radiator.... and have a cat purring away on my knees...

'Neutropaenia may be further away than it might appear'



Minerva

Is there love after cancer?

First a warning. This is not a post that derives from self pity. This is a post that comes from the early morning, late night wandering thoughts that come from being a cancer sufferer. Not just a cancer battler, even, but one who is doing this alone.

Yes, I have friends, yes, I have family and yes, I have you. I am indeed lucky and I do realise that. No one I know has such a great support system, and is lucky enough to have friends from all over the world tuning in and reading her blog but the fact still remains, I am, ultimately, on my own.

I woke up this morning. Sunday morning in London in my attic room. Rain trickling down the skylight window, its comforting tapping a great inducement to roll over into someone's arms and be held. I miss that. I miss someone to hold me at night, someone to hold me in the morning. I miss the warm breath of words on my skin and a hand over my hair that reassures me that someone still wants to touch me, still finds me attractive, still wants to be with me.

I am alone and the other side of the bed screams my loneliness back to me. I have always had male friends around me. I am a flirt and love the company of men finding them less complicated, and less devious than women. I was horribly bullied at school and ever since then have relied more on men. That has changed in the last ten years when women have ever increasingly entered my life and I realise that some women are trustworthy, kind and loving. That my experiences at school were just one off bad experiences as much engendered by the person I was then as the girls I came into touch with.

I am 39. I am young. I have three children. I am divorced and alone. Will I, as a cancer survivor, ever find love again? Will anyone ever take on a difficult, passionate, emotional, stimulating, intelligent woman with only one breast and whose head looks like a lavatory brush?

I can't help but start laughing at that one...

Minerva

So what do you say when people have cancer?

Thanks to Lucinda for the idea..following the 'what they say' post. I have to say that saying anything, no matter how crass, is better than saying nothing. Oh, and this is a very personal list and other people may feel differently.

1. Listen

When you have been diagnosed with cancer, it is a huge shock. It takes over all your horizons, and curtains every window. Your mind leaps forward and imagines your death, your funeral and the events you are going to miss in the future. You can't help it, it just happens... The only thing you want to do for quite a while is talk about it. Normal life somehow just recedes into the distance and like a bright orange splodge in the middle of a Constable painting, it is THERE and you can't take your eyes off it. No matter how ugly, how scary, your mind and eyes keep returning to the ugliness of cancer.. How can you help? Let me talk about it...let me talk about it until you are falling asleep with boredom and until your eyelids are drooping with ennui. I need to share my fears, I need to talk about what is happening to me, I need to see your reaction to show me it is real as I am in a state of disbelief with what I have been told. It is only by telling people, by sharing the news that it somehow becomes real.

2. Support

I want to visit a doctor in Nepal? Fine. I believe that eating ball bearings with roasted ham bones is going to cure me? Well and good. I give up dairy? Super. I start eating dairy. Fine... I am an adult. As a friend or a member or my family, what I need is support for whatever I want to do. I want to keep working. Great. I don't. Fine... Back up my choices and help me follow them through. If anything, because by doing that, you will be reducing my stress levels...

3. Help

Practical help is wonderful. Anything from sending me jokes and texts to cooking me meals when I am incapacitated from chemo or taking my kids out when I have a rest. My mother has been a complete god send to me since this awful thing started. She would admit that she has been more of a talker than a helper in the past, but at the moment, I couldn't get through this without her. She buys me ready meals which are healthy so I don't succumb to eating something quick but unnutritious when I am tired, she takes my dog out for a walk every day so that I don't have to worry about doing it when I get back from work. She knows that working is the most important thing to me for my own self-esteem and well being and by doing what she is doing, she helps me and supports my choice. She knows that I am shattered when I return from work in the afternoon, but she never nags me to walk my dog myself but tucks me into bed, makes sure I have something healthy in the fridge and feeds the dog when she returns so I can sleep. What a goddess....

4. Keep in touch.

I love the fact that friends, family and old friends read my blog and keep in touch with me from all over the world, but I have noticed that the attention does tail off after the first shock of diagnosis. This is going to be a long haul for me and my family. I have chemo all the way through to January, then surgery and its recovery, then radiotherapy for a minimum of six weeks, followed by hormone therapy which will put me into premature menopause. Please don't fade away after two months... Keep in touch whether by email, phone or text.. I love your messages and your contact...

5. Give me hope...

Late at night the fears crowd around me like shivering ghosts. I weep with the worry that I won't see my children grow up, that I won't see my grandchildren or see my girls happy. But when people really listen to what I have and then tell me about a friend who had the same cancer in her breast and her lymph nodes but 18 years on has no recurrence, I have hope. When friends' mothers call me and tell me about their experience, it gives me hope. When people make advance plans and include me in them, it gives me hope. When we talk about next year, I always wonder if I will be there. Help me by showing me that you believe I will. Help me by showing me that you have hope because it gives me hope too. It means that I sleep better, that I wake up more rested and that I keep myself healthy for my next treatment...


6. Call it what it is - Cancer.

Last, but not least, say the cancer word. Don't call it 'the big C' or 'it' or other unsuitable euphemisms. That just reinforces the fact that cancer is taboo, is something to be scared of. Let's name it, shame it, shine a great big light on it and show it that it is ONLY cancer. That it is vulnerable to the advances of science and that against our combined strength, it doesn't have a chance....

Minerva

The nature of death.

Death comes to all... A fundamental truth and one that the majority of us try to deny for most of our waking existence. Occasionally, when we are diagnosed with a life-threatening disease we are aware of the sudden check, the pulling of the mortal reins, the pit in the middle of the road that we usually cover with branches in our own minds hoping we shall forget it.

Today, that sudden jerk happened again.

I am a teacher in a boys' school. I don't talk about it here because I love my job passionately, I think young people are fascinating and don't see that their lives should be open but today, that changes. A young man in the head boy team, a musician, a boy with a glowing future had a heart attack last night and when his parents went to find him, he was dead. He was 15 years old.

I thought of those parents today. Imagine saying 'goodnight' to your son, being aware that your boy, who was normally such a good waker needed rousing this morning. Did they go up the stairs in exasperation? Were they in a hurry for work themselves? Perhaps busy with other children's breakfasts? What was it like to open the door and see him still in bed? Did they try to rouse him, and then, second by slow second, did the truth swim slowly into their mind like a shark, too awful to name?

The boys at our school normally tough hardened kids were in tears. They have no natural defence against death at the age of 15. They may boast about violence, they may watch films about death, but when it happens to someone in their age group, they were laid flat by it.

And it wasn't just his close friends. The whole school was muted today. Staff, especially those who taught him went around with red eyes, younger boys spoke in muted tones, and some played up in class so as to protest against the sentence we all have, to emphasise their lives, their few moments of glory.

Death comes to all, but at the age of 15 with a potential recording contract ahead of you, glittering GCSEs and a gorgeous personality, it is like a beautiful unfolding flower cut violently with an axe.

Tonight, we think of you, we think of your family and we think of your friends. May they always remember you and the preciousness of life.

Minerva

What they say....

and what I think..

1. You will survive this, I know you will.. Normally said staring hard into my eyes and holding one of my hands...

Why thank you, but just one question. If you 'saw' that I was going to die, would you tell me? No, funny that, I thought not... *wicked internal grin*

Wow, you are the third/thirtieth person I have heard of this day/month/year who has got this.

SO WHAT??!! Like THAT helps....
Does it help an AIDS victim to know that loads of people round the world have AIDS? No, I don't think so.... *rolling eyes*

3. Almost worth having it for the free reconstruction....

Oh yes, thanks for THAT... In fact, realising that I am way too poor to afford plastic surgery, I deliberately ate badly in order to get a reconstruction this way. Stomach cancer next and maybe a tummy tuck - what do you think? Honestly, don't these people THINK before opening their mouths?

Why don't they just take off the thing and get rid of it? Why wait?

Because, much as you are entitled to your opinion, it is MY breast and I am not actually that gung ho about losing a key part of my sexuality, if that is alright with you....


5. What did you do wrong? I mean, there is always a reason, isn't there? I hope you are now going to eat better/exercise/take better care of yourself...

Actually, there was absolutely nothing that I did to get this, and the only change I am going to make is to get rid of loser friends like you...get it?

Oh, my friend had that and she called this phone number/found this doctor/cut all dairy/only ate rabbit droppings mixed with fried vinegar.....and she was completely cured!

Oh great - I didn't realise you were medically qualified and you, who run to the doctor for your ingrown toenail are now foisting quackery onto me... You wouldn't take it yourself so why push it into my face? I think I have enough stress right now....

What is the prognosis?

Putting whether I am going to die or not into statistics doesn't actually help and you know what? It isn't any of your business?! Strangely enough, as soon as someone asks this question, I immediately want to exaggerate the risk... *rolling eyes*

So are you worried about losing your hair/losing your breast/chemo/radiotherapy?

No, not at all... *yawn* Just a walk in the park really... HELLO!! Wake up..and smell the vomit bowl... I am knee wobblingly, heart poundingly, gut wrenchingly scared about it all and even more scared that if I DON'T do these awful things I will die... Did you hear what I said about stress?

I read on your blog that you had chemo so how was it this time?

The whole POINT of having my blog is so that I am spared the multitude of phone calls where I repeat the same thing over and over again... And anyway, it was very similar - sick - down - tired...okay get it?

The best thing to get over cancer is a positive attitude. Stay positive and you'll be fine...

So the two hours I sobbed my heart out yesterday over the loss of my hair now means that I will die as that wasn't exactly positive. Or are the five days after chemo where I feel horrid mean that I am actually propelling myself to my death? Thanks for the extra layer of guilt which I SO don't need...

But

even having said all that, saying something, anything even the comments above is better than saying nothing and passing by on the other side....

and...to all those wonderful people who do read and keep up with my news, who ring/text/email with funny jokes and support I do so appreciate it.... And I am still laughing....

Minerva

Hair today, gone tomorrow....

I lost my temper with the strands of thin lifeless hair that I had left on Sunday night and hacked at my head with a pair of children's paper scissors. I made a 'pudding bowl' bob and on Monday, when one of the boys at school looked at me aghast and said, " Miss, why did you cut your hair? I preferred it long.", I had to agree with him.

Today, having asked for a half day every day all this week, I arrived home early with a bag of resolve. I wanted it off, I wanted the awful stringy tendrils that pass for hair to be away and to move on, to progress. I kept my hair deliberately all last week as only having just told my children it would have been wrong to move them from short haired mummy to bald, shaven mummy in just 5 days.... They needed to get used to the idea that my hair would fall out in their own time...

However, they are now back at school and it was time to think of myself..so off I went...

Round the corner from me is a rather glamorous looking boutique with a sign outside saying 'hairdressing, highlighting, musical, relaxing', so I thought this was worth a try. Down a rickety spiral staircase with little bottles on each corner of the step that bounced slightly as I went down... That was when the doubts started to creep in... I was met by a lovely woman with long black hair and her assistant. The lady told me she had other clients who were going through the same thing, and you know what? Despite the puddle on the floor from the leaking sink, the wet hairs on the floor from another client's hair, the toddler in the nappy who was wandering around who belonged to the mother of the assistant, it was so warm, so friendly and, above all, just somewhere trapped for a moment in time. This was such an important moment for me. I was about to remove my own hair, my first symbol of femininity and it was important for me that this was a unique event, a personal letting go rather than an anonymous quick shave and brush for a fiver at the local barber's...

The salon itself was a complete rip off. I would never have paid as much as I did on a normal day and been happy about it. It was gouging in the nicest possible sense. But I was happy, I was content. But let us not be mistaken about what I paid for here... I didn't pay for the 5 minutes she spent shaving my hair off, or the 5 minutes she spent sewing my wig bands together to make them tighter... No, I paid for an hour and a half of chatting to three lovely women about everything from breastfeeding to cancer and back again. They reassured me as the clippers sliced off the hair, and told me what a hero, what a star I was and you know what? What was strange was the more that came off of my temporary hair, the more the real me, the difficult, tempestuous, familiar, passionate me came to the surface. Although I have never ever had my hair this short before, I finally recognised my own face in the mirror. Taking all that hair off didn't alienate my personality but rather gave my cancer fighting heroine a face...

I now feel better than I have for ages. I look in the mirror and this slightly spiky girl looking back at me looks like the new Minerva inside. The phoenix is rising from the ashes, and the new spiky wanderer is plaiting itself from its shorn locks.

I am me again.

I paid for a haircut but found my self.

Maybe it was a bargain, after all....

Minerva