Thank you for the muse-ic

This is a music night. Flex your music muscles mes amis. We’re going to be movin an a  groovin very soon!

I hope you are all supertastic? Why don’t you tell me back what’s going on with you – put it in the comments please – this is a two-way thing, after all.

Right, enough about you. I’m not Mother Theresa, loves! Sort yourselves out!

The other week, I went for an MRI scan. (Bloody hell, only back from hols and lols with the boy and straight back in!)

The MRI was to have a look at a few other bits of concern. Fine. No drama – we are all good with that. It’s better to be talked about than not at all, if you see what I mean.

I’d listened to BBCR4 the night prior. (While we were in Crete the other week, boy carer said, ‘there’s 3 people on this holiday: you, me and Radio 4’ – but he lacked the manscara and guyliner to evoke any sympathy #diana).

The chap on the radio was saying that he’d had a PET scan, which was very claustrophobic. I’m listening but secretly thinking, somewhat disingenuously some may say, thank FEC I’m not in for that. Then he goes: ‘at least it’s not as bad as an MRI -‘that’s way closer.’

Shit. What to do. I can’t get into a small lift. I can’t get into a public lavvy cubicle unless I leave the door unlocked. On an easyJet flight I just get… well, speedy off-boarding (at the right time, obvs) syndrome. Truth is, I’m rubbish at small spaces, and Onc hadn’t even said how small it was going to be, nor that I would be in there for one whole HOUR.

I begin to panic, and say to boy and mini-carer, that on the day, if I can’t get into it, I can’t. I email Onc on the morning to say I will try to get in, but I might not.

‘Two diazepam, two cocodamol. Get in, I’ll see you after.’

‘Love you too, gorgeous,’ I didn’t say. Had I been sat in front of him at the time, he’d have no doubt peered over his glasses at me and swatted me away with a nonchalant flick of the hand. And I would have punched him in the face.

Nonetheless, I have to have this done – there’s no other way to test for another situation I may have. I’ve got to woman up. Hey – I’ve had loads of scans these last 10 months –

Ooh, Scanana-rama …. let me think.

Ultrasound x 20+++++ (but still, we’re deffo not preggers – dammit!)
Gamma x 5 (yeah whatever, can’t remember what for or why)
CT x 6 ( no need to be rude)
Overhead projector lightweight one x 1 (bones are dense, much like my brain)
MR bloody I x 1 (see below,)

I can’t count the 19 sessions of radiotherapy, because, technically they are not a scan. Oh no – they’re zapping highly toxic doses of radiation into me, a situation they have to remove themselves from lest they get affected.

Honestly, when I’m back to work, anyone who needs any photocopying done, I’m your girl – it ain’t what I do, it’s the way that I do it.

So on MRI day, suffice to say, I’m more nervous about this part than any other element of the process we’ve been through so far. Put it this way, there’s no need of Movicol to get me going that morning, for the first time since chemo started.

I have been advised to start shooting up with my (prescribed, loves!) drugs an hour before I have to go, into what I perceive to be, the frozen, long, dark drawer of an undertaker’s lair. No light, no way out. And, I’m told, you go in head first. Eeeeek, I think. Followed by an unscheduled splattttttt. Ummm…sorry about that, scanning dept at the hospital. #awkward

You have to get into the music mode now, please.

I get into the scanning room, half-doped, half-frantic. I have to leave his nibs outside in reception, which I never like.

Well. It’s an… itsy bitsy, teeny weenie, greeeey-ish big machiney – so, in the locker, I chose to stay. Ha ha ha ha – ha ha ha ha ha ha!

I’m protesting like mad but slurring deeply, as the consultant radiologist assures me all will be fine. Actually, the thing is not as bad as I’d been led to believe…there is a beginning, and there is an end, in that, it is not closed off at one end. Then – news of the day – because they are scanning my lower back and pelvis -I get to go in FEET first.

It still means I’m in the inner of a kitchen roll for an hour, head included, no room to scratch that if I had an itch – BUT – it made it, somehow, better.

They shove you in and piss off – de rigueur throughout this nonsense- but they talk to you ALL the time. As the thing whirrs, shakes, bangs, vibrates, the consultant asks me if I’d like any music. I’m getting higher and higher on the pre-drugs so I start to think of a new playlist I could start.

I’ve discussed this with two other cancoids I’m in touch with at the mo and we all agreed that this was fine, coming from us.

So, I give you, courtesy of diazepam and cocodamol, the other week, the ultimate cancer playlist, in rough synchronicity with my own process.

 

Has to start with Queen – You’re my breast friend!

Who wants a bit of Blondie – PICCture this!

How about, to follow, ‘Surgery!’ – Bee gees, obvs…

Or, that classic from M-people, ‘Move-it-all up’? (The intent was to move it all down, but never mind)

Ooh, I know, Bananarama – ‘I heard a tumour’!

Or, if you fancy an album, I’d recommend Fleetwood Mac, Tumours? Very good, I hear.

Next up, The Verve – Bitter Sweet Lymphomy. I love that one – though not recommended during diagnosis staging. Can be #awks

Just had a request in for Culture Club – Karma Chemo-leon. Yeah! Long, repetitive, painful and annoying. That just about sums it up.

Hang on – a really, really, really OLD friend of mine recommended this one, originally by the Edsells – Mammogram-a-ding-dong! Yay, love it!

I’m a lifelong fan of ABBA so I was only too pleased when they offered to dedicate the following to me:

Waterpoo! (Tell me about it Agnetha, I got c-diff in acute oncology! It’s as though you’d written the symptoms into the song, my Swedish sister from another mother. Mind you, I put that sepsis episode down to a Tainted Glove, of course. Cheers Marc Almond 🙂

And ..

‘Knowing me, knowing Poo’ – well, breaking up is never easy to do, is it Bjorn – but tell me about it again, I’ve a big stick and I still can’t get them down. Jeez Louise.

 

And then,…the MRI… I…. I…Delilah…forgive me Delilah, I just couldn’t take any more.

Because by then, I was off the planet on drugs, fast asleep under the inside of a kitchen roll, laughing my head off in my slumbers. Such fun!

So lucky my C hasn’t yet metastasised – or, my musical chums, we could have been looking at Billie Spleen and the theme to the Bone Ranger!

Love you all and thank you as always for your support.

Pip pip xx

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sent from my iPad