Tag Archives: thank you

Gratitude

Posted on by
3

Fresh start

I love my MAC eyebrow brush.

After their scrape with cancer my eyebrows have grown back slightly moth eaten. As I fill in the gaps between the hairs with my chisel brush, I muse it could be compared to painting by numbers, that’s another first for me, thanks cancer.

This shiny and new thrill of life is constantly stoked by gratitude. There are repeated nagging reminders of where I’ve been. I don’t want lymphedema thinking it can set up camp here, make sure the right arm doesn’t get stressed, carry with my left arm, one armed shopping is slow. The thought of traveling to the States is unthinkable, it would be easier to swim there loaded down with stones in my pockets than contemplate the preposterous insurance premiums.

The news wakes me, in the furure there will be a vaccination for breast cancer. My treatment for the condition will be considered medieval, drastic, destined to be part of the gory history of medicine. Perversely in its existentialist way the experience is something I value highly.

Before I sleep I am crowded with thank yous from the days various experiences. I wake to the knowledge, my body, the complicated machine, has kept on going. Again, my lips are parted as I breathe out, thank you.

I want the safety of the heat of two bodies wrapped together and make my own thick swaddled safe heat, piling my bed with duvets and throws. Mike tells me that sauna is an alternative cancer therapy, I like to think this is my body instinctively doing its thing.

I listen to the tape loop, once more my senses are blotted by the velvet darkness of music. Without asking for help, anonymously, my hand is taken in the black, a moments break from the stress of coping, silently I am guided to the next place. Betrayal is a caustic, scalding pain, sometimes too much to risk asking for help, for hours I sit uncomfortably saving my fading smear of strength to carry me back to the strong arms of home.

STOP! Get back in the moment.

The nurse carefully explains hospital is for the seriously ill. Patients are vulnerable, they are fearful, we must listen, they need kindness. Like a hug, relief washes over, there, I can feel safe, far from the outside familiar, of projections and assumptions.

Cancer free, I celebrate. The metaphorical pruning forced on me, has made good changes. The sifting through the experiences continues. New episodes of life are joined together as I sing, dance, run, jump and twirl, in a rain of cherry blossom petals.

Thank you.

Good Friday

Posted on by
2

Good Friday, hot cross buns

With the port removed from my chest earlier this week I am freed from the breast cancer adventure. Good Friday, a simple, bold statement, nothing says it quite as well. Have a happy one!

There was a lump in my right breast about a year ago. Not quite a lump more a piece of torn mozzarella. I felt again and again, sometimes there, sometimes not, only a visit to the doctor would tell me anything.

For so long the flow of bad news came thick and fast, there seemed to be no way of staunching it, the brakes were off, every piece of news was wrapped and cushioned in the consultants’ careful language.

Until I had a treatment plan, top of the priority list was the son getting a stress free crack at his exams. Only a few knew I had cancer until after my birthday, the last thing I wanted was a sympathy fuck of a celebration. I wanted the day as it should be, preserved untainted by cancer, it was everything I could have wished for.

Simon my buddy for my consultant appointments never saw my breasts. He heard only bizarre abstract conversations about them through a curtain, the position of the lumps, their size, the reduction, the nipples, the mounding, rounding, the healing and the texture of the flesh. This all fed my strong sense of the ridiculous, I wanted to laugh as I thought the talk had the flavour of renaissance stories of encarcerated nuns with only a small chink in the wall of their cell to communicate through.

I am looking down at my fingers, they are trying to pick up an almond, they scrabble incompetently, they are not doing it. For a couple of minutes I concentrate very hard on the action. Detached I watch laughing at my baby like graspings, it’s the neuropathy kicking in, though I am willing it with all my might messages don’t always make it to the chemo damaged nerve endings of my finger tips. The frustration of having to cut short chemo, because my hearing and balance were being damaged by the drugs, they were small sacrifices to have a taste of where I am now.

Outside the French windows in the narrow strip of garden I see the perky fresh narcissus nodding in the spring breeze. When chemo was thick, fast and weekly, though dull with crawling exhaustion, the want to have something to look forward to drove me out to plant bulbs. I wanted to smell their sweetness, the anticipated scent of narcissus goaded me on all through those enveloping dark months. The condition became a project, pulling myself through, muttering my mantra in my head. The aim was to get over this hurdle with as much laughter and simple pleasure as possible.

I haven’t been alone, there have been many cheering me on in their own special way. When I was told I had cancer my prayer went up, please let my children be proud of me, and I am very proud of them. I asked my daughter how she felt about moving back home to help me. Her reply illuminated things about me I hadn’t understood. There was no option but to come home, you have always looked after us, you have made so many sacrifices for us, I’ve watched you reject great relationships to be there for us. I owe you big time.

I am reconstructed surgically, my skin and flesh is burnt, my curly hair’s new. There are changes inside as well, I laugh that people cant see that the old inside self has been sloughed off, a husk. With the acceptance of the condition life has taken on a fresh urgency. Mike and I hug each other in a moment of exhilaration and black humour, we have got so far, so many changes, what an adventure, one neither of us wanted but having gone through it would not have chosen to miss.

I feel like a sponge, squashed, depleated, the bounce sqeezed out, I am frustrated it will take time to build up. I am gentler on those around me and myself.

After all these months to have a normal life again is such a treat. While I am sewing seeds, I am looking forward to the changes I will make.

Thank you all for making it possible.

Welcome to C World

Posted on by
2

Huh suddenly it's everywhere!

Whenever I look at my reflection an unfamiliar person dodges in front. Who is this diminutive lady bobbing about?

I am mesmerized by her smiley, perky, face. Her skin is peachy and smooth. Her bright green sparkling eyes tell of a sense of fun, I’m intrigued. She has a healthy mop of exuberant bouncy curls. Her clothes, charcoal grey, short wool tunic teamed with Tenniel stripe leggings, ankle boots, and a herring bone tweed jacket, I want to be her friend. Where’s this little glowing person from?

This is me. There’s a ferocious stab of pain as I remember only a couple of short months ago I missed buying a wonderful heirloom hat because I couldn’t bare to be confronted by my baldness in the public glare of a shop when I took off my beret to try it on. I balked at these new curls as they grew back replacing my previously dead straight hair. Such are my outward physical changes. Again and again I’m reacquainted with the facts of life, welcome to c world.

It’s not really about those physical changes but acceptance of the deep psychological shifts that have taken place. Over the past couple of weeks, there’s been much furniture moving in my head, clearing the decks of breast cancer. In bright spring sunshine the architect and I walk over the water meadows, the talk is of acceptance, I want his guidance, he has come to terms with so much. I am shedding the old, becoming the new me. I am building, like a cadis fly, bits assembled from whatever comes my way, driftwood, glass chips, shreds of paper, rags, pot shards, to make a sparkly jewel from the flotsam of life.

Bound together with my kids, we have traveled a slippery route, sometimes one faltering, hand out stretched we steady each other. I am confident in the way they will drag me over any obstacle in our path. And in amongst this sticky, messy, tangle a successful new set of results arrives for the boy. Throughout all this they have both kept their heads clear, aiming for what they want, keeping to their grooves. We have become a beautiful, complex weave. I am a proud mother.

At the day surgery reception the sister is brought to the phone. I understand the language she uses, as the patient on the other end explains about her chemotherapy, they agree to postpone her appointment ‘til May. So recently my story. It feels like a milestone, at last I am well enough for a colonoscopy. My sister is with me, I am ready for anything.

I tell the nurse thanks to chemotherapy I have difficult veins, the can do lady replies she’s the woman for me, as bingo, first try, the cannula slips home.

I am perched in bed, in the regulation gown, cot sides up, reading the paper. The consultant comes in carrying my topply thick file of notes. Taking his cue from me, the atmosphere is relaxed, we could be at a party, his shoulder leans into the wall, in the moment his head cocked. Looks like you’ve had a lot going on, what’s your story Amanda?

Later in the day Simon, my ever ready buddy through this adventure texts me.

I’ve never been so pleased to hear news about a bottom before. Really brilliant. My suggestion is you sit on said bottom for a little longer……couldn’t be more delighted. You have been fab throughout these horrors and deserve some good fortune and fun and adventure.

All clear, relief is a mighty feeling. Thank you.