Big Week

There is a lot on this week. My CT scan is tomorrow afternoon and the results on Friday. A CT scan to double check the results of my PET scan before Christmas.

I have to say that I have completely submerged my Cancer reality somewhere below the Titanic's resting place at the moment. There is, in my current life, no time, no space and no place for illness, disease and debilitation. I am writing lesson plans like there is no tomorrow, furiously scribbling to-do lists and organising my three children as well as trying to plan a holiday in the summer. Additionally our headmaster is doing on the spot observations of our lessons for the next two weeks and I am nervous as I so want to prove that I can still do it.


It isn't as effortless as it used to be. I feel the arthritis in my bones when I move around the classroom and my boys watch me limp across for the first few steps and their questions are always full of concern. I am currently teaching 'Two Weeks With the Queen' by Morris Gleitzman which is about cancer. Strange as I remember teaching it when I was first diagnosed and having to walk out of the classroom as tears pricked at my eyes. Now, it seems a world, a galaxy, a life time away and tomorrow will be a hard shock as I land back into planet hospital.

Because of my bubble reality I had put off thinking about Friday when I receive the results. My brother, unfortunately, can't come on Friday and I wasn't particularly worried. But, as I drove home Friday evening, I started thinking, really considering the possible implications, and I know that I need someone. I am much braver when I am with someone else: it helps me to focus and to de-emotionalise myself. The English teacher is shuddering with distaste at her desecration of the language but that is how I feel. I talk as though I am looking down on this person who is being told about her cancer, and I don't feel anything.

Luckily, for me, my dear friend V is free and will come with me. I hope for a fairly easy decision either way. I am wondering, actually, whether I really ought to have treatment. Docetaxol really killed me in the summer and for what? For three lousy months without Cancer before it returned but I don't know if I have the courage to ask about my prognosis. To ask and be told a finite number no matter how long or short it is is too much I think. I am already quite pessimistic and to be told a certain number, which after all, whilst a majority statistic, need not apply to me is very limiting...

We shall see if I survive to Friday!

Minerva

**** Update***
I have finally after so many years decided to thank you all for your comments by commenting myself. Thank you to each and every one of you that make the effort to visit me.. I will return the favour when I can!