Fine!

How are things? How are you? How ARE you? How are YOU? How are you doing?

Fine thanks!

Not too bad.

Erra okay.

Getting there.

Good now thanks.

Great!

It's a bit hard for people to know what to say to a person who is having chemotherapy. Mostly because they don't really expect to see you. 
You should be at home in bed with a bald head, wrapped in a cosy crocheted rug, with a pale watery smile on your face. 
They shouldn't have to meet you at work, or at a party, or doing the shopping. 
They should be coming to you, with caring faces and the shoulder-drop of pity, bearing cake and sympathy. Then they'd know what to say. But a non-sick sick person is a bit of a head-scratcher.

And of course, the sick person is actually a bit sick all right. She has pain and aches in most places. She has a headache and a dry mouth and sore skin. She has unpredictable stomach cramps and dodgy bowels. But she's not going to get into that in the corridor or supermarket aisle. So she'll say she's fine in a range of ways which, if you listen closely, will tell you where she's really at on the symptom spectrum. 

I'm in today for my second cycle of chemo. It seems like longer than two weeks since I was last here. We've been busy. I have had some new side effects that unsettled me a bit, but they may also have come from trying to learn to cycle. (Yes people, laugh all you like, this 39-year-old can't ride a bike.)

The side effects are going to get worse, and I might have to stop working, or I might have to spend more time in bed. My skin is going to go pustular. My hair will thin, but there's so much of it it's very unlikely anyone will notice. (I will have to start vacuuming the house more often to scoop up all the hair. But the steroids make me clean maniacally anyway so it's all good.)

I still won't look very sick in the classic TV-cancer way. 
I think some people may be beginning to think I'm making it all up. My godmother thinks the doctors have got it all wrong. 
She pretty much always thinks this about doctors. And she's generally right. 
She is nearly 90 years old and has not changed in any way in the nearly forty years I have known her. (Although sometimes, now, she doesn't whitewash the house and paint the kitchen ceiling on the same day.) She digs her potatoes, manhandles various farm animals, makes a three-course meal for anyone who arrives at her door. She has an iron spirit and a heart of fluffy marshmallows. She pays no attention to ill-health or ageing. 
She is my hero and I want to be like her. 

So when you ask, I will say, "I'm fine, thanks for asking. Now, where's that paintbrush?" 

Meh

I asked for therapy, and I got therapy.

Chemotherapy. 

Round 3. 

I was a bit disappointed that there wasn't a scantily clad lady in high heels walking around the ward holding up the number on a card, with a bell in the background going "ding ding!" 
But that would perpetuate the "fight" theme which cancer-types either love or hate. As in, "she fought bravely", or "...after a long battle". 
Some cancerheads feel that this kind of talk makes people who die from cancer losers, or weak, or poor strategists, or surrender-monkeys. Which is a bit harsh all right. 
I intend to have a very heated debate with cancer, and win on points because of my witty repartee and cunning use of populist humour. 

The clever use of words will have to be supplemented by the ugh-inducing use of cytotoxic drugs, though. I accept this. Doesn't mean I was bounding in there this morning, delighted to be back in the squeaky chairs and eating mediocre food.* But it has to be done, and sure doesn't it give me something to write about. 

Once again, my failure to actually write anything useful on this weblog has bitten me on the ass. Like, wouldn't it have been helpful to document how I felt during the last two blasts of gunk? I could have made a list of the things I would do differently next time, like starting the anti-pizza-face meds before the pro-pizza-face stuff started. Like ordering the super-soft toothbrush the dentist recommended, which is apparently called a Nimbus (the fact that he made no reference to Harry Potter when he mentioned this did worry me somewhat). Like remembering that my short-term memory will be pathetic, and anything requiring brainpower will need to be postponed until another time in the fuchsia. 
Like that I tend to mix up my words. 
(Just asked MTC to pass me a packet of sweet and sour Hula Hoops).


So bear with me here while I witter on in increasingly non-sensical prose. 
Gotta keep that clever counter-argument going, you see. 




*

Medi-ochre. Geddit?

Therapy?

My life has returned to normal so much it's unsettling. Turns out my brain can cope far better with imminent disaster than it can with your standard multiple low-level anxieties. 

Work is getting hard again. 
Hard on the brain, trying to work out complicated presentations. 
Hard on the heart, listening to stories of destitution, deprivation, desolation. 
Hard on the generosity, when people are actively ungrateful. 

I can tell when my anxiety levels are rising, because I get an increasing amount of what psych-types call "intrusive thoughts". Basically these are very strong mental images of you doing something awful and out of character. Example: kicking an old lady up the bum. I'm admitting to something here that others may or may not have experience of themselves. So either you are nodding sympathetically, or you are whistling while twiddling your finger next to your temple. Anyway the great thing about intrusive thoughts is that it is exceptionally unlikely that I would ever act on them. They tend to happen more to people who have OCD traits, and for whom control is a big thing. So your brain, in its infinite sneakiness, makes you imagine the worst case scenario of losing the plot. It makes you believe you could, in fact, whack a priest across the face with your shoe, or drop-kick a newborn over a wall. See, told ya. Totally loolah. 

Anyway, when I started getting more of these little Bishop-Brennan moments, I decided to go along for a bit of brain-shampooing. I've always been a fan of an old spot of psychotherapy. It may not surprise my readers to learn that I'm a bit fond of talking about myself. So handing over 70 quid to ramble on about myself for an hour seems like a fair deal to me. I could if course get it for free, through the kindness of ARC house et al, and I have gratefully used their service in the past. But the new "I'm so well now I can't have cancer" delusion would be shattered by crossing that threshold so I'd rather pay the money and feel like a standard crazy loon than a cancer-struck one. 

So off I went, twice, and spoke to the kind lady. She ooed and hmmed in all the right places. She fell into the same trap they all do though. "My, aren't you great?"  Don't feed the ego lady, it's already morbidly obese (oops, less of the morbid, remember the delusion). 

I did feel a bit better though.

Next step in self-care was going out for the night to the pub I used to drink in when I was a student, with the some of the friends I used to live with back then. Proper solid nostalgising. And I drank almost like I used to (replacing pints with half-pints; I haven't totally lost my senses). It felt bleeding marvellous. The hangover was like another old friend, ready to greet me in the morning with a cup of Barrys tea. My GGT doubled, then recovered within a week. Go on the freshly grown liver! 

The final step in the anxiety management plan was a trip to my favourite offshore island, to escape from all semblance of real life and bask in the timeless nothingness of long walks and throwing stones into the water. Which was all well and good, but I came home after a day to go to work for a morning. And then, sadly, came home again for a funeral. 

I have spoken before about radiators and drains. This girl had a PhD in Warmth and Kindness. She was the Professor of Empathy. She was the most selfless person I ever met. I don't think it was a coincidence that she was buried on a Saturday. She wouldn't have wanted to put anyone out by being so rude as to make them miss work to send her off. She was a shining light and now the people she loved have a bit of darkness in them that will never brighten again. 

And she had bloody great hair.