Storm

The waves of cancer are receding now. Brief reminders of the storm still lie littered around the shore. The rocks of muscle weakness and the shells of oedema still serve as reminders of the fierceness of the squall. The sharks of death still circle, out to sea a little but eternally a reminder of the unpredictability of the weather of health. I may be in the eye now, steadily walking more and more starting to think about a return to the gym and hopefully, a return to some level of everyday fitness.

But some things have changed for ever. My diet, ever a question of hit and miss, is now much more vegetable and fruit orientated and I am trying to cut down on the caffeine, ever my weakness. I hope, and the word is hope, to return to work next week providing that the doctor passes me for ‘normal’ duties. That I will find out on Wednesday.

On Wednesday too the first of several checkups as well as an appointment to schedule the first of many scans. My first CT scan will take place at the end of July. If there is any cancer, I start a lighter form of tablet chemo which, the doctors promise, means that I won’t lose my hair. I do hope not as I am becoming quite attached to the baby chick fuzz that is sprouting from my scalp. Not a hint of curl or wave in it though despite the numerous attestations I have from other sufferers of this horrid disease to the contrary.

It is recovery though. Every day I can walk more, I am not so stiff when get up from my bed or from sitting down and standing is no longer something I think about. Just three weeks ago, three short weeks, I was walking with a stick, I was unable to stand for longer than a couple of minutes and emotionally was angry and frustrated.

The storm has abated: may the next one never come.

Minerva

Improvement

Slowly, my life, my body and my mood improves. Last week I went to the Breast Cancer Haven in Fulham to participate in a Look Good Feel Better session. Staffed by volunteer beauticians and with products donated by the beauty industry, they come in and give a make up session. It was very strange for someone who has actively avoided looking at mirrors for the past five months to engage with one so thoroughly. And they really do help. Tips on how to accentuate eyes when you have no eyelashes or eyebrows, tips to take the focus from one's hair to one's eyes and how to put the bloom back in cheeks sallow from chemo were all incredibly helpful.

Not just that but today a friend and newly married relative came round to do my nails. My poor battered half dead nails didn't know what had hit them. She was so kind, gentle and tender with my fingers. Two of my nails have fallen off and she still tended to the stumps and chattered all the way through. Sitting in the garden, in the London sunshine I drifted into a world pre cancer, a world where all I had to worry about was which colour nail varnish I chose, and how to moisturise my flaky, dry skin. A world a million miles away from cancer, from CT scans and lymph nodes. A world whose door is slowly edging open to me.

But the improvement isn't just cosmetic. The day before yesterday I walked to the supermarket without a break at all for the full 500 yards and carried four heavy bags back. On Saturday, I went to a party and danced again. The sheer freedom of being able to move, of my body, whilst not entirely obedient yet, starting to rejoice in its new found mobility and agility. I had to rest, of course, on Sunday but the exhileration was obvious. My afternoon naps are a thing of the past as I return to the world of the forty year old, of the independent woman and mother I have always been.

Of course, the recovery is long. It takes a long time for a pruned rose to return, but slowly I feel the energy of Spring in my muscles, I feel the sunshine warm my tired skin and I look to the future because I am starting to realise there really is one.

It will take a while to flower, but the first shoots are definitely showing through.

Minerva

Frustration

I hate my body. I hate living in what amounts to a fleshy prison.

Inside I feel wonderful; strong, beautiful and powerful. Inside, I am the same woman I have always been. I fly seemingly above this strange body that I am in and I relate to people in the same way that I always have. Inside, I am as young as I was at seventeen, as powerful as the teacher in my classroom, as loving as the mother's arms I have always given to my children. Inside I am so powerful and so strong. I have beaten cancer twice, twice in 18 months and am looking forward to going back to work...and outside?

Outside, I am ugly, so ugly I can't look in mirrors for fear of the monstrosity that looks back at me. My face is so puffy, so drowning in flesh, my legs are huge, so big that when I kick off the one pair of jeans that fits me at night I rush to get under the duvet so I don't have to confront them. When the body that I am inhabiting does have to be faced, I do it emotionless and cold. I can't help it; I don't want this body. I don't want these legs that can't go up the stairs without resting, I want my life, my wardrobe and my own body back.

Have you any idea how many mirrors one has in one's house? I do. I am acutely aware of each one and can tell you the different areas I look at now as I approach them in the spaces that I live in. The one at the top of the stairs is easy; I look at the picture of the church where we were married. The bathroom mirrors, I avoid by looking at the taps and the sink. The one in the hall I make sure I keep my eyes on where I am going. When, by chance, and it does happen unfortunately, I catch a glimpse of myself in one, I see a stranger, a woman whom I don't know, don't want to know, whom I pity, and whose appearance revolts me.

I am so very very angry. So angry at what the cancer, and the treatment have done to my body, to my mind, and to my life. What on earth have I done to deserve all this? Why does a woman of 40 whose only goals in life have been to try and forge a path of happiness for her family and herself had to face these extra trials? I hate it, I hate cancer, and I hate the body that I have been left with after cancer. Yes, I know I am lucky it has gone. I am not quite that insular but I am furious with the aftermath that it has left in its wake.

I am supposed to be celebrating and all I can do is hate. Hate my body, hate my existence, and hate the frustration of being myself in a stranger's flesh.

Minerva