Good evening friends! How are we all? Lovely to see you and I hope your Halloween was just as you wanted it to be. Bring on the weekend – my female feline carer support team, Ms Karen and Ms Willy, can’t bloody wait for 5th November. They’re already clinging to me and him, terrified that even an accidental lady puff from their human mother’s (currently highly) unreliable back end, could be Ms Catherine of the Wheel, come to initiate their undoing. Far too many bangs going on here for normal expectations, and it’s freaking them out.
Festively, I put a note on the front door on Monday evening – something along the lines of, ‘piss off this year, thanks very much for asking.’ I’m all heart, obvs.
Tomorrow, I’ll be a week post chemo #3. I think the Onc has given me a placebo this time. Well, he hasn’t been arsed to do a post chemo check up on me, so either he knows something I don’t, or I know something he doesn’t want me to. I’m watching you, sunshine! All I do know, is that I seem to have tolerated the immunotherapy this time – as in, no evidence of infection; all things functioning as well as can be expected. Hurrah!! This is what I want.
I have put myself through training for this – no point leaving anything to chance. My diet has been refined towards cleansing, liver and kidney-friendly foods. No red meat, or saturated fat; mostly veg, oily fish, wholegrains, berries, an obscene amount of leafy green veg, pounds of pulses. Also, exercise, plenty of fresh sea air – and an awful lot of R&R. None of this is a cure (if only it were that simple; eating less shite in life is generally good for health, but if your shite has hit the doo-dah, it won’t reverse things). No one has told me to do this – it’s just my instinct. My intent is to maximise the impact of the treatment, and I’ve done it every time over the last five years. Didn’t jeffin work last time, but I’m a counter upper, not a droopy downer, so I’ll carry on.
In short, I’ve equipped myself with everything I usually eat/do, but sometimes forget if I’m not completely on the case. The point is to support the organs that got pissed off last time, with the foods and activity which will enable them to clear the shite I get pumped with every three weeks. So far so good. After about 3 days trawling the entire internet I managed to find, ahem, evidence, that RED WINE COUNTS TOO, for metastatic lung cancer. How happy could a girl be??
Impossible to be any happier! I’m so wrung out on steroids I’m bloody hyper. One minute leaping to the pharmacy, declaring the world is a lovely place, smiling cheerily to farting, leaky old men; the next, flat on my back in Lidl car park laughing like a drain, so tired I don’t know if I’ve got a Special Buy or a 10-pack of furry non-slip coat hangers. Again.
Yep – we’re into the 10-day, wide awake, Faithless ‘can’t get no…’ bonanza. Just so hilarious!
It builds. Even though I only take them for six days, the little bugger starts accumulating; so really, by the time you stop taking them, the effect is only really beginning. I have to log sleep, bum function, nausea – anything – in a diary every day, just in case ‘not very interested’ Onc decides to ask. He hasn’t.
I had an epic last night. Went to bed to watch Bake Off and as per, fell asleep before the result. Oh! I slept like a baby! (Bit of a bad phrase; they don’t tend to sleep that well, do they??) Until…11.45pm. Dammit.
After that, the die was cast. I knew full well, that more sleep would cometh not.
Fast forward and it’s 5.45am. I’ve worked out the Chicken theory of relativity (achoo!! I hope my chicky is safe); watched a few episodes of Outlaws, caught up on the actual result of Bake Off – time to sleep. For a spectacular, further, one hour.
No matter – stuff to do! Up I leap; I’ve built in an appointment in my three week regime going forwards, with a friend who will give me the most lush head and face massage type thingy, when I’m so tired that nothing else will help me relax. A warm, comfortable place, lots of woo woo music, candles – off I drift, as she carefully choreographs a path to utter relaxation. I’m asleep. It is 8am.
Out I come, dreamy, woozy, swirly – I cannot wait to get home, put my slippers on, get the metre-long hot water bottle filled, put my fluffy dressing gown over my day clothes, shut the curtains and get under the duvet.
Crikey, my idea of a day well spent in bed has changed.
I catch the carer observing this with a mix of semi-consternation and imminent doom.
What has happened to that woman I married? Just seven years ago?? Why so greasy, wizened, so addicted to comfy brushed cotton and bed socks, when once, only silk – and not much of it either, to be fair, would do?
I can’t be bloody arsed – I’m knackered out, freezing, I’ve definitely got to pull another night shift to-very-night. It’s every woman for herself at times like this.
As I catch his wistful (yet quiet, and massively devastated) glaze, I realise. Not only is he looking at the transformation of his once lithe and keen beloved – he’s also deeply worried that some of those dissuaded Hallowe’en ers have actually got into our house.
My hair, newly anointed with soothing oils, is sticking out like someone who has accidentally shoved their hand into a live socket. And underneath, matted, moisture and oil-ridden curly tufts, prevail. What a bloody catch. If Colin Firth could see me now – phwoaaarr!
If he could pull that off (I could help? 🙄), it’d be Mr Farcey, and no mistake. Oscars aplenty, coming his way.
The hair, anyway, has become..interesting. The alpaca is sort of still in full swing. This is the deeply-curly mullet effect, created by re-growth following last year’s chemo, but only at the front of the head – covered by longer strands of wispy old hair, which somehow I clung on to at the time.
Now, we seem to approaching a stand off. The thin longer bits are starting to thin again- but according to the two people who really get up close to my (head!) hair, the alpaca is holding well. Meanwhile – just like chemo #1, for unrelated breast cancer five years ago, MOST OTHER HAIR has gone. Yes – gone!
At that time, I reported it as yet another resounding benefit of this treatment lark – no costly waxing, autumnal worries about, I don’t know, hairy ankles, plaited pits – it’s just vanished. Huzzah! Still picking out the old lady hairs on my chinny chin chin but heck – the process is but a puppy – I’ll be rubbing those sheisters off with my little finger within a couple of weeks.
Even my somewhat hursuit brows – quite the trend with slug loving youngsters – are on the wane. Formerly a champion of au naturel, I had hearty but natural coverage – occasionally neatened – but a look that those of a certain age may describe as Dennis Healy with a brow perm. Crumbs, they were LONG. Shockingly long. Halfway up my forehead if you blinked. Not that I could – too damn LONG! So … heavy, to lift!
Anyway – none of this matters at all. It’s not even vanity – I never had it, and the good Lord above knows I never will. It’s just the funny old side of treatment, which continues to amaze, inform and entertain me every single day. Honestly, it’s just so fascinating.
I’m not even nearly tired yet – just revving up. The heavens are truly open; the female felines are in and manually attached. Life is good!
Tomorrow? No idea. But I must take those furry hangers back to Lids. Turns out I didn’t need 35 after all.
Pip pip – and keep those pets indoors, folks xx
Who's going to get the chicken? 