Tits, tips, whizzer & chips

Evening, Chickettes!

 

First of all – THERE IS NO NEW NEWS. I haven’t got a hatrick yet, or – not that I know of! I was absolutely hopeless at keeping the Chicken, and who indeed was going to get it, alive during the end of last year. Soz. I’ve gone a bit veggie too, which may help mitigate!

 

This was partly because the whole process of a new cancer was utterly bizarre. Not the actual happening of it – that was fine – I had breast cancer because I have breasts, I had lung cancer because I used to smoke. Absolutely fine by me. You reap what you sow and all of that – it’s fair.

 

No, I mean, it was almost like CA Express. CA is the medical code for cancer, so, if you’re ever in with the GP, you’re chatting away and you see what she is writing…if you see ‘?CA?’, not that you would decipher it, obvs, pin her to the desk and get answers.

 

Or maybe the CA Drive-Thru?

 

‘Ello good morning what can I get yooooo, is that a meal you want? No, what just the coffeeeee? No fries with that? Ok, go to the next windowwwwwww which is what it says on my sheeeeet when they don’t buy a meeeeel thank you for your business and have a good daaaaay!’

 

I’ll never go back to the Fat Duck again, that much I can tell you.

 

Well, let’s try this. I pull up to the window.

‘Good morning young sir, I’d greatly appreciate one of your finest upper right lung lobectomies please!’

 

‘You want any morpheeeeeen with that?’

 

‘Yes please good man. As much as you can muster!’

 

Speaking of muster – well – I find myself in an extraordinarily military kind of environment in my new job. It’s all acronyms, orders, clicking of heels and frankly, little boys clinging on to their past glories. Oooh!

 

Typical day:

 

“Now look here Bunty, there’s trouble in the troops.”

“Righto Sir, what’s to do?”

“We need Chalkie, Fizzer, Chippo and Whizz, at the double.”

“Certainly Sir! Report back in the Mess at 17:00hrs’

“Good work Bunty. See you for sundowners then, old bean.”

 

I was not, and am not, Bunty.

So it’s a tiny bit awks if I have to go off for TitCheck, or LungCheck. Not with my immediate boss, of course – she is an ACTUAL FEMALE – and could not be better as a boss and a human being.

It’s more with the senior chaps. We were in a meeting at 8.30 the other day; I knew I had to leave by 9.20 to go for my mammogram results meeting. (For anyone new to this blog, it started three years ago when I was diagnosed with breast cancer – keep scrolling back down, it was much funnier when I had more to face – and it’s only going on now because I got lung cancer, unrelated, five months ago).

So…I am running the meeting and the (hitherto) frozen chaps are beginning, just about, to learn that a woman is not just there to make the coffee – and then I have to go. I say, honestly, that I have a hospital appointment. Frowns and shuffling and jolly good luck.

I would like to tell them why, I can’t and don’t. I am not Bunty, after all.

Onwards, upwards, bigger better MORE! Ohh – which reminds me.

So off I trot to the other god.

I have the original, the Loving one, with the capital G; my beloved Oncologist also with a capital G, as this is the first letter of his surname; and my breast consultant who has no Gs in his name, yet is my saviour for matters of the boob department.

I was with this god of mine on Tuesday. After the physical examination, I get dressed and sit in front of his desk.

“No evidence of recurrence in either breast, Sophie”, says he.

“Thank you!” say I, ever so slightly relieved.

His face is not right though.

I hear a ‘but’.

“However, I am not happy with the way you were left post-surgery. It was not well done. It is causing distortion and tissue scarring which will only become worse over time. You have some tissue, forming as lumps, also which I would like to remove. It depends how you feel about it.”

Now that’s a question. Look, I’m 53, not 23; I am happily married in a loving relationship; I don’t care about how I look; or, I do care, but my husband can’t be beaten off by a stick carried by 100 Bison – so?

We think on.

In the meantime, I’m super excited for Monday, as it’s my first PET CT scan for lung cancer; I haven’t shared this yet, but this is the treatment plan I will have going forward, every six months, for five years. Surveillance, said Onc God, is more effective than chemo or radio at the time, last autumn.  Apparently, this little bugger is more likely to turn up again, than the breast cancer. I’m ready, as always.

Let’s see if Bunty is free to make the coffee, eh?

 

Pip pip xx