Going forward in ups and downs

I was tempted to stop there.  To stop blogging with my last post and its final, joyous sentence: I am rediscovering the glorious, sweet thing that is life. 

Life.  What a great word to end a blog about cancer.  And I know how immensely fortunate I am to be here to enjoy simply being alive.  But in the daily routines and requirements of post-cancer life, you can't always be savouring every moment.  In fact, I read an article recently that talked about how difficult it can be for cancer survivors to deal with the pressures of life post-treatment - we are bombarded with stories about people for whom 'Cancer Changed My Life!!' and how they have gone on to live more fully than ever before.

In reality, for most of us, post-cancer life looks remarkably like pre-cancer life.  The washing, ironing and cleaning still needs to be done and winter days are still wet, cold and dark.  We just have to do it with short hair and scars.

Some of us may also be coping with survivors' guilt.  Why did we survive when so many admirable people do not?  Or else we get caught in a 'wait and see' scenario, holding off fully engaging until we can be sure that this gift of life is not simply a short respite.

But perhaps the most common feeling is that life feels just a bit...flat.  As a good friend put it recently, her post-cancer life feels 'lame'.  Dull.  Oh my, I feel guilty just typing that.  How can we complain about a dull life when we should grateful to be here at all?

This time last year I was facing a chemo-Christmas and, trust me, I am truly grateful that this year I am healthy.  I never want to go back there again.  And yet... When I was sick it seemed that nothing I could do was wrong, everyone thought I was so brave, so wonderful.  I found that I almost had a celebrity status when I was on chemo. Now I'm just 'me' again...     I am no longer a 'celebrity' and that is a good thing - but I miss being the centre of all that fuss.  

My friend writes: Last year I got so many emails and letters and visits from overseas. Now the stream of attention has dried up. Not that I always want to be in the floodlights, but it was great to have so many visiting friends and conversations and deep talks about life. Compared to last year I am living in social isolation - despite the fact that I spent most of last winter on or near the couch.

Combine that with scrappy new hair, no job and a thickening waistline (thanks Tamoxifen) and perhaps it's not surprising that our self-image isn't exactly sparkling at the moment.

So where do we go from here?  First of all, we DO need to remember to give thanks.  It's true that's its corny and we can't be expected to live our lives feeling happy every minute just to be alive - but we ARE alive and that is a gift.  Then we need to remember how strong we are.  Not because we 'beat' cancer (that's just luck) but because we fought it.  We lived through FEC and wigs and vomiting and scabby nails (or equivalents) and kept going.  We are still amazing - even if we can't expect to have cheerleaders around us telling us so any more.

And then we need to go forward.  Life post-cancer is still going to have grey days just as it did pre-cancer and that's ok.  We're allowed to have downs as well as ups just like everyone else.  But now we have experience of our deepest selves in the hardest of times and have learnt how to draw strength when we really need it.  The truth is that 'beating' cancer doesn't change anyone's life.  It just helps us realise how amazing we all can be. 

The terrible, wonderful world of cancer

It's sixteen months since I heard the words, 'They found cancer cells.'

Sixteen months of treatment that turned my life upside down.  Of misery and exhaustion and fear...and intense love from my family and wonderful friends and a rediscovery of the sweetness of life.

For a long time after my first ever post,  when my terrified fingers typed cancercancercancer, this terrible C word became the focal point of my life.  You can see it on my blog where I posted every few days, first of all about my own first faltering steps through treatment, then later about the wider world of new cancer treatments and the psychology of dealing with a cancer diagnosis.

Sixteen months on and the cancer still looms huge in my life.  This is no common cold that will pass!  I remember every time I run my hands through my hair, when I reach for my bra, when I exercise, when I look on Facebook and see posts from others travelling the same path.  But it is no long the hub on which my life turns.  I can see that it is weeks since I last posted and that's because I have been busy living: settling my family into our new home, writing stories instead of cancer blogs, creating a new website about me as an author not a cancer blogger, meeting new people who have no idea that cancer ever touched my life and think I just like to wear my hair this weird way...

It's not as if there aren't plenty of things to blog about.  It seems that the terrible, wonderful world of cancer is almost always in the news these days and many of these stories are inspiring and full of hope.  A new blood test that can detect cancer and pinpoint the affected organ from just a single drop!  New technology that can use fat cells to can carry a 'heat activated grenade' to the site of a tumour and explode the cancer cells without killing healthy cells!  Glamorous ladies posing topless in the Sun post-mastectomy! 

There are stories to chill me too.  A good friend has discovered that the breast cancer is back for a third time, this time in her bones.  She is facing life with a chronic disease.  But she is still facing life. 

I am still afraid, fear still lurks in the 4am shadows when I mentally check my body and wonder, wonder, wonder...is there something malevolent brewing somewhere inside me?  I know it could still take my life.  But I am also realising with a sense of wonder that even if I do have to face the devil called Cancer a second time, it does not have to mean the end...maybe not even the suffering that a cancer diagnosis means in terms of treatment in today's world.  The scientists are bounding forward  like knights clad in white coats against the dragon called Cancer!

Meanwhile my hair grows.  My world, which shrank so small during the cancer months, expands again and flows over the old, pre-cancer boundaries.  Dear friends, I neglect my blog.  I am rediscovering the glorious, sweet thing that is life. 

Facing my Cancer Demons

I went for dinner with a good friend the other night.  She took my hand and told me I looked amazing. 

"You've handled all this so well," she told me.  "You're so Brave!  So Inspirational!"

Now, I know that I am not Brave.  Nor am I Inspirational.  Brave is for people who jump into freezing lakes to save small children.  Inspirational is for amazing cancer patients (often terrifyingly young) who face a death sentence and yet go on to raise huge sums of money for research, or follow their dreams or climb Kilimanjaro or something.

Me?  I've just coped with a year of breast cancer as best I could.  And I'm keeping all my fingers crossed that I won't be called upon to cope with a more serious diagnosis.

On the other hand, it's jolly nice to be told you're amazing and inspirational so I have to confess that I've lapped up the praise. 

Then she said, "You must be glad it's all over."

But it's not over, I told her.  I'm not entirely sure it will ever be 'over': a close friend's mother has just had her breast cancer return in her lungs 17 years after her first diagnosis.  I went for my first year check up the other day without much concern but found myself overwhelmed by the feelings of powerlessness and the inevitability of bad news that coloured my hospital visits this time last year and ended up sobbing in the changing rooms when I got the all clear.  (A Scary Mammogram).

That's not me.  At least, it didn't use to be me.  I'm still struggling with the fall out from Cancer.

I love my friend, she's a super bouncy optimistic, can-do kind of lady, but (like so many of my other non-Cancer friends) she looked anxious when I started to say things that were less than positive. 

But you're on Tamoxifen, she reminded me.  You've had all the treatment.  There's no reason to think the Cancer will come back.  You mustn't worry!

This is all true.  But it is also true that there is a chance that my breast cancer will return somewhere else.  And breast cancer in the breast is, essentially, an inconvenience;  breast cancer in a more vital organ can be a death sentence.  Surely it's normal to be a least a little bit concerned about that?

It's great that my friends think I'm Amazing Cancer Babe and their feedback has helped me stay positive through all my treatment because the more they tell me I'm so brave etc etc, the more I've put on a brave face and that actually does help me feel much better than letting myself dwell on dark thoughts.  I'm a great believer in the power of both positive and negative thoughts (Don't Fall in the Nocebo Trap!)

But I wish more of my friends would accept that, sometimes, I need to face reality and share the dark thoughts too.  After all, I'm not just being irrationally negative.  So can't I admit to feeling scared without it being a big deal?

I read a great post by Carrie the other day about the roles we play when we have Cancer.  She describes how we  often put on a mask to the world and act out a role of being brave, optimistic, tough - no matter how we feel inside.  It's so true.  We do it even when we don't realise that's what we're doing.

I was talking with another friend about hair loss and she was surprised when I said something that revealed how difficult it had been.

"You coped so well with that," she said.  "You seemed okay with it."

Seriously?  I was as bald as a hardboiled egg for six months and I seemed okay with that?  Wow, I'm a much better actress than I thought.

Now that I have been cast in the role of Chloe the Brave, it is difficult to break free.  If I start being Chloe the Scared then people often fall into three camps:

The Jolly Campers: who simply refuse to accept that there is any realistic reason to think the Cancer might come back so we end up in some daft argument about the statistics;

The Psychotherapists: who listen to my worries but feel obliged to spend hours working through the issues to 'cure' me from 'negative' thinking so we end up in an exhausting discussion about my mental state;

The Fan Group: who admire my positivity and look disappointed if I start to talk about my fears so I end up feeling as I let them down.  

All in all, it's easier to put on a smile even when we aren't smiling inside.

Fortunately for me I have good friends who understand (especially those who have done this Cancer thing in some form or other before me).  When I tell them I'm scared about the future, or complain about my Tamoxifen niggles, or simply cry, they just let me get on with facing my cancer demons because they know that sometimes we have to look at the dark possibilities before we get on with being brave and inspirational again.

My friend who endured various forms of Cancer listens to me babble on and then she says simply, "Yeah, it sucks, doesn't it?"

"Yeah," I agree.  "It sucks."  And then I feel better.

Not the Usual Facebook Photos

I had a Facebook Self Pity moment this morning.

I made the mistake of checking Facebook and found endless photos of friends on sunkissed beaches with tanned, happy kids.  Seriously people, how many photos of turquoise seas entitled 'View from breakfast' do you think I can take?

Let  me share my Facebook Photos.

Photo 1: A mountain of boxes surrounded by  a sea of stuff in a storm of chaos.  We are moving country again.

Photo 2: Car being hauled up onto a tow truck.  Yup, that's the car that my husband needs at the weekend to start shifting the box mountain back across the Channel.  The car broke down on Monday.  The day before Belgian National Day when EVERYTHING closes.

Photo 3: Husband on the phone trying to find garage to fix car.  All garages in Brussels are closed until August because...everyone in Brussels is now on holiday.  Probably on a sunkissed beach with a breakfast view.

Photo 4: Daughter looking miserable on sofa.  She should be at the zoo with friends but is stuck home with ear ache.  Can we find a doctor who hasn't gone on holiday?  Can we heck.  Those sunkissed beaches must be seriously crowded by now.

Photo 5: This one's a selfie - me shaking in my shoes outside my oncologist's office waiting for my check up after my scary mammogram last week.  My husband was due to be with me, but is now at home looking after sick daughter and on the phone trying get either a mechanic or a doctor not on holiday.

Like my album? But of course, none of this really matters.  This level of crap doesn't compare with last July when we were stuck at home doing tests after my biopsy found cancer cells in my breast. (Oh and my daughter had to be hospitalised with a serious break in her arm in the middle of it all).  I think I can cope with a broken down car and earache despite the box chaos.

And honestly, being on a sunkissed beach can't compare with the high of being told by your oncologist that the tests have found nothing worse than a low vitamin D level.

After all, life is made up of good things and bad.  I'm lucky that I'm still here to live it, warts and all.

Besides, one more week and we'll be on holiday too.

I promise not to post any photos.

Discovering the Blogosphere

Writing this blog has kept me sane over the last, turbulent year.  I'm a firm believer that simply writing things down can make them seem more manageable - indeed studies have shown that writing can help with anxiety and grief ( The Write Way Through Cancer)

For me, sharing has made writing even more rewarding.  Horrible tests and difficult times feel less pointless if they can be blogged and can help others going through the same experience.  I love it when I see that I have had hits from all round the world, from Columbia to Japan and Russia.  If I've helped just one person prepare for a surgery through my Diary of a Mastectomy, or cheered someone through a dark day with my post on Ten Good Things About Cancer or encouraged one person facing chemotherapy with my Not so Scary Chemo Story, then it was worth sharing.

But, until recently, I was only dimly aware of the many other breast cancer blogs out there, largely because the sheer number of sites are overwhelming and difficult to navigate.  Then I discovered Marie Ennis O'Connor's great site Journeying Beyond Breast Cancer. which (among other things) includes a regular round up of the cancer posts that have moved her, inspired her or taught her something.  So I started clicking on some of the links.

Wow.  There are some awesome ladies (and the occasional guy) blogging about breast cancer out there.  I found posts that made me laugh and ones that made me cry,  posts that made me think and ones that made me yell, "Yes, that's exactly how I feel too!". 

So thank you ladies (and gents), I'm honoured to have been included in a round of up of such witty, inspirational, thought provoking writers.  And thanks, Marie, for making the Blogosphere manageable. 

I've focused exclusively on my Cancer in my blog, but one of the trends doing the rounds is to recognise the fact that we are all more than our Cancer by posting fifteen random facts about ourselves (thanks Nancy).

I'd recommend everyone has a go at this, even if you'd rather not share.  It's so easy to say glibly that we are 'more than our cancer.'  But it was only when I faced a blank page and challenged myself to find fifteen things that didn't mention the C-word that I realised quite how defined by Cancer I have become over the last year.  By the end, I had remembered that Cancer has only been one small strand of my life which has included much more exciting things... like Whale Sharks, Dr Who's TARDIS and beer. 

So here are my fifteen facts.  It was fun to write.  Try it!

1.       I've lived in six countries including Poland, Bermuda and Tanzania.

2.       I once (briefly) had a job teaching babies how to use sign language through songs.  I'm not sure how I ended up doing that because I can't sing in tune.  The babies didn't seem to mind.

3.       I have Irish parents and a son with a US passport but feel 100% English.

4.       I love scuba diving - but only in warm water.  I have no ambition to dive off British shores.

5.       I've been a serial volunteer with an eclectic selection of jobs including working with people with AIDS/HIV in rural Africa, children with cancer and a group of Afghan refugees squatting in a church.

6.       The most thrilling experience I ever had was swimming with Whale Sharks - the biggest fish in the sea.

7.       I can speak reasonable French and some Swahili but no Portuguese, despite going to Portugal every summer for the last decade.  Learning Portuguese has appeared on my New Year's Resolution List for years ...This year I will take lessons... I will, I will....

8.       I am so short sighted that I qualify for financial aid to get specs under the NHS.

9.       I hate cooking meals but love to bake especially creating cakes for my kids' birthdays - my masterpieces to date include a fairy castle, a mine craft world and Dr Who's TARDIS (which looked, though I say it myself, utterly awesome.  But, sadly, it wasn't bigger on the inside than on the outside.)

10.   I love being at home with my kids but hate the housework that comes with the job and am still looking for a better job title than the obnoxious 'housewife' as I'm definitely not married to my house.

11.   I'm the youngest of four siblings, married to the eldest of four siblings.  He's the boss.  At least, I let him think he is.

12.   My friends keep me (relatively) sane.  I have close friends who come from all over the world  (Spain, Sweden, Korea, Canada, United States, New Zealand...) and who live as expats all over the world (Zambia, Japan, Malaysia...).  I've known my oldest friend for over forty years (since we were three!)

13.   I love scary fairground rides.

14.   I'm hopeless at sport, especially ball sports (see number 8), but love to play squash because you can have a great game even if you're really rubbish.

15.   I've tried over seventy different Belgian beers and made a montage of beer labels which is hung on our wall.  I'm working on a second montage, there's a lot of wonderful Belgian beer to drink...

The Trouble with Tamoxifen

If you're brave enough, take a look at the possible side effects of Tamoxifen listed on the packet.  It's awe-inspiring - everything from hot flushes to dizziness to uterine cancer.  So I was somewhat nervous when I started my ten year stint of taking the daily drug a couple of months ago.

But, as I reported in an earlier post, things have gone remarkably well with few side effects.  The only significant problem I have is something totally unforeseen... remembering to take the wretched thing.

I did so well in the beginning, never missing a day.  After a few weeks, I started to forget to take it at my regular morning slot but somehow always remembered by lunch time.  Then the holidays began and I went to pieces.  My routine is all over the place and I sometimes can't remember what day of the week it is, so remembering to take that little pill is a major challenge and I confess to waking up a few mornings with the sinking realisation that I completely forgot to take it the previous day.  I try to take it with my morning coffee on the grounds that caffeine addiction ensures that I never forget to make a coffee first thing, but the slightest change of routine - a sunny day so I take my coffee outside for example - can mean that my pack of pills lies forgotten while I enjoy my caffeine shot in the sunshine. 

This week I outdid myself.  On Monday, my husband made me my morning coffee.  By this time I was keeping the pack of pills right next to the coffee jar but, as I didn't make the coffee myself, I didn't see the packet as I enjoyed my breakfast and never even thought about my pill.  Then the kids and I headed to the airport for quick visit back to London ...and I forgot to pack any Tamoxifen at all.  Oops.

I remembered on the plane.  But, by the time I arrived it was really too late to do much about it so I waited until the next morning to go straight into the chemists and beg for help.  By this time, of course, I had already missed one day.  The very nice pharmacist told me that she could give me an emergency supply but she needed to know the strength; unfortunately I didn't even realise that Tamoxifen came in different strengths.  So I waited until my husband got home in Brussels and he checked for me.  Back to the pharmacist to report: 20mg. 

But by this time it was a different pharmacist and he told me that he needed more proof that I really was on Tamoxifen. I wanted to say - just look at my hair!  Instead I got my husband to scan my Belgian prescription and email to me.  The pharmacist looked doubtfully at my oncologist's scrawl on the screen and shook his head.

"We don't have that brand," he said.

Surely one brand of Tamoxifen is the same as another?  But it seems that a pharmacist can't make that decision - it requires a doctor.  I'd just met a friend for drinks and a catch up so, instead of going to the planned riverside pub, I took her to a walk-in clinic and we chatted in the waiting room.  You see, I make a great date.  Mind you, it somehow seemed appropriate as I updated her on the events of the last year which has involved many, many hours in hospital waiting rooms.  An hour later I went in for five minutes to see a doctor and emerged brandishing the required prescription as if I had been awarded first prize.  We got back to the chemists with minutes to spare before closing time and, at last, the pharmacist accepted that the required paperwork had been done and handed over the pills.

My lesson has been learnt.  I now have an emergency supply of Tamoxifen in my handbag, just in case.  I have another pack in the car and the details of my prescription on my phone.  And I'm going to set a daily alarm to remind me. 

And yet, in a way, I feel oddly cheered by this latest adventure.  If I forget to take my medication for a day or more, it's because I don't even think of the Cancer in that time.  It's taken a year, but life is finally getting back to normal. 

Maybe next time I meet my friend, we might even make it to the pub instead of a hospital.

Celebrating my Cancer-versary

This time last year I was scared.

 

It was a gloriously sunny start to summer.  I remember my husband and I sitting on a park bench in the sun and crying together because I had just been diagnosed with breast cancer.  I remember taking my son for ice cream and breaking the news.  I remember trying to explain to my daughter why all our summer holiday plans were on hold.

Fast forward exactly one year and I was scared again.  But this time in a good way with a silly grin all over my face as I was strapped into my first ever loop-the-loop roller coaster ride next to my son.  He turned to me with the knowing smile of someone who has done this before and asked if I was ok.

"Of course," I said. "It can't be as scary as chemo."

It was a flippant reply but it's true that the last year has put things in perspective.  No matter that we are about to move country yet again and we don't know where we are going.  Just like last year, it's a gloriously sunny start to summer and I'm going to take time off from packing boxes to enjoy it with my loved ones because this is the most precious thing of all.  Who knows what the future will bring?  All we can do is live each moment as fully as we can... so I wasn't going to say no when my son challenged me to do the roller coaster ride.

And how was it?  Awesome.  So awesome that I went back and did it again.  And then did every other scary ride in the park.  Eight utterly terrifying rides later and my son was very proud of me.  I've got to admit that I was pretty proud of myself - and felt exhilaratedly, fabulously alive. 

Growing Pains

Today I used my hairdryer.

This is a cause for celebration: nine months have passed since the Head Shave and I finally have some hair to dry!  On the other hand, I've also had nine months of pulling a wig or hat over my baldie head and not having to worry about wayward hair. 

A month or so ago I had a black skullcap of new hair which actually looked rather trendy-chic in a severe sort of way.  I've lost count of the number of people who have told me that it looks great and I should keep it that way (which slightly makes me wonder if that's a reflection on the bird's-nest of hair I had Pre-Cancer).  Apparently I have a nice shaped head and can get away with super-short hair -  either that or I have super-nice friends who know how to make me feel better, which is, perhaps, more likely.

Anyway, chic or not, it didn't look like me when I looked in the mirror.  And it was still so short that I felt I was carrying a sign on my forehead: Just Finished Chemo!  So I might keep it short but it needs to do a fair bit of growing before I'll feel like Me again.  And there lies the problem.  My chic skullcap is gradually disappearing under new growth and my hair is springing into life with glorious vitality.  In all directions.  With curly bits and crinkly flourishes.  New hairs reach for the sun like shoots on a bean plant.  The unexpectedly beautiful Chic Black is softening into my more usual Mouse Brown -  except that I have lots of new Grey Highlights. And like a bush that explodes back into life in the spring time, I look decidedly shaggy.

So, for the first time, I have enough hair that people who don't know me probably think that I have simply chosen to have it this short.  That's great.  Except that it now looks a mess and I suspect that it's going to get a lot messier before it gets much better.  So there I am, back in the bathroom with my hairdryer, applying de-frizzers and trying to get it to lie flat.  Ah well, I guess this is a problem that I am happy to have and soon I hope I'll have enough to go for a celebratory and exceedingly indulgently expensive haircut. 

After nine months of savings on hair products and haircuts - I deserve it.

Cancer One Year On: Under Siege

Today is a special day.  It's exactly one year since I went to the doctor to ask about the strange lump in my breast. 

There is so much to celebrate.  It's difficult to remember now how dark things seemed in those early days, when my liver scan suggested a possible metastatis and we worried that I might not live to see this anniversary.   My mastectomy scar has healed up beautifully, chemo is a distant memory and radiotherapy is all done.

And yet....It's not quite the celebration I had anticipated.  It's as if the battle is over but I am still under siege.  For much of the past year I have been in full fighting mode, focusing on getting through one day at a time and kicking Cancer's butt!  I expected to feel awful, so even on my worse days it was just a question of taking one step at a time.

But I suppose I thought that by now - a whole year since this war was declared - things would have gone back to normal.  And, indeed, things are much improved: Cancer is no longer the focus of our family life and I feel much better than I have for a long time.  And yet I still don't feel 'normal' -  my chest is still post-radio-sore, my arm has gone stiff and needs stretching yet again, I am suffering side effects from Tamoxifen that are very mild compared to chemo but I worry that I'll be stuck with them for the next ten years.  I worry generally.  I have tingling in my fingers and I worry about lymphedema.  I feel dizzy and I worry that there is an undetected tumour in my brain.  I worry that I used to be a person who never worried about her health, never went to the doctor, and now I am turning into a hypochondriac.

So that's what I mean when I say I feel under siege - open warfare is over and life has a semblance of normality but the enemy is still camped at the gate.  I can imagine fighting my way through the miseries of surgery, chemo and radio with a brave smile on my face - only to be ground into the dust by the minor, daily discomforts of Tamoxifen.  I can see why the oncologist warned me that this is often the time that women experience a bout of depression.

So - I will not surrender to the darkness camped at the gate.  I will celebrate my new, funky (if still rather short) hairstyle and the fact that I can finally go out bareheaded.  I will stretch my stiff arm and be glad that it has come so far from the days just after the operation when I was sure I would never have full movement again.   I will rest and be gentle with myself when I'm tired and accept that my body has been through a lot, and exercise and push myself when I can because I need strength in my body to face the future.  I am strong.  One year on and I am alive... and that is a lot.

Not Ready to Hang Up my Headscarf

At the weekend I bared my head in public for the first time since last September.

Appropriately, it was for a thank you party in our house for all the people who helped out during my treatment, so it was an easy audience for my new hair.  I got lots of compliments and I've got to admit, all things considered, I am quite happy with the way my hair is coming through.  It's different from the long, sun streaked fair hair I used to have but - having been worried that I would be at least temporarily, totally grey - I'm quietly pleased with my new dark-haired (if shot through with grey) pixie-look.

There's a big difference, however, between sharing my new look with people who are in the know and have seen my metamorphosis all the way through, and people who might think that this close cropped look is the way I actually choose to style my hair.  I mean, it's okay, but the truth is that  I look somewhere between a wannabe arty type and a council estate vandal. 

So I'm not sure I'm ready to face world bareheaded just yet.

And if I'm really honest, there's a deeper fear lurking beneath my headscarf too.  Last summer, losing my hair felt so scary, like I was being forced into a Public Declaration of Sickness ('Look at me in my headscarf - I've got CANCER and might DIE!').  Of course, my super-cool wig saved the day and let me go anonymous when I chose to but increasingly I found that I was more comfortable going out in a headscarf.  I didn't mind that people could see what I was going through any more, in fact it made life easier ('Look at me in my headscarf - I'm Sick so you'd better be nice to me!').  And there's something socially liberating about going through chemo: all you have to do is turn up to things and smile and everyone thinks you are some kind of heroine. ('Look at me in my headscarf - aren't I Brave?').

Am I ready to go back to being just a mum with a dodgy hairstyle??

My friend's mum has glaucoma and is now almost blind and has been issued with a white stick.  The stick is not, however, really to help her find her way around.  Instead it is a signal to others that they need to be patient when she can't read the menu, or struggles to enter her PIN number.  People are much more tolerant with an almost-blind person than they are with a regular old lady.

And I confess, my headscarf has become my white stick.  It reminds people, friends and family as well as strangers, that I still get tired sometimes even though treatment is finished.  It is my signal to the world that my head is still very much in Cancer Patient Mode even if my hair is beginning to suggest that I should be Normal again by now.  I don't feel Normal.  I don't feel ready to be treated as if I am Normal just yet. 

So this morning I cleared up after the party and slipped my headscarf back on to go and do the shopping.

Look at me in my headscarf.

And be patient for a little while longer.

Prescribing exercise?

I am very lucky - I've been treated for my breast cancer by a hospital that takes exercise seriously.  Twice a week, throughout my treatment, I have attended an exercise class with other women in various stages of their breast cancer treatment.  But today I heard that the course might be under threat because the hospital cannot get funding.

That raises the question: Should exercise be provided as part of the prescribed treatment for breast cancer?

The science is certainly there to show that regular exercise reduces the chances of breast cancer recurring.  I have to admit, however, that there is little scientific about the class I attend at hospital: we do some abdominal and weight exercises and use the cardio-vascular machines in exactly the same way as most Bums and Tums classes and workout regimes.  So should the hospital provide something that could be found at any regular gym?

I strongly believe that the answer is 'yes' and it's less about what we do and more about the environment.

First, it is deeply reassuring to have physios overseeing our exercise routine.  I didn't need to have specific appointments with a physio after my mastectomy because I was seeing my physio twice a week at my exercise class anyway.  And she was still there to advise me a couple of months later when the problems with mobility in my left arm resurfaced.  She was there to reassure me that it was fine to take part in the exercise for my arms without worrying about lymphedema and she told me how to keep going when I was in the middle of chemo and just looking at an exercise bike sent my heart rate through the roof.  Now that I have finished the active treatment and headed into a period when it is known that women often suffer from depression- she's still there with her bounce and enthusiasm to encourage me on my way.

Meanwhile, I have also done the journey alongside a good crowd of other women going through the same process: we compare the hair appearing on our bald heads, encourage each other when times get tough and keep each other going when the slog all seems too much.  After all, if they could keep going through chemo, then I knew I could too.

Yes, I could have joined a regular exercise class and doubtless met another great crowd of women.  But would I have been brave enough to take my bald head to a class of gym bunnies with nice hair, to keep turning up when the exhaustion of chemo meant I couldn't really keep up, to try arm exercises when I was terrified of lymphedema or to reveal my lopsided shape under a gym T shirt when my radio-burnt skin meant I couldn't wear a bra?

Probably not.

Whereas now, I am physically more confident, my hair is regrowing, soon I will be able to wear my bra again so no-one will know my curves are not my own and I've even got some muscle in my arms.  I've learnt to love my bi-weekly exercise hit rather than seeing it as a necessity and, when my hospital course comes to an end, signing up for a regular gym will be a priority. 

So, as a result of my relatively inexpensive hospital-organised class, I am much more likely to incorporate regular exercise into my regime which will reduce my chances of having to come back for expensive chemo and radiotherapy treatments by an amazing 25%.

That's got to be a good investment, hasn't it?

Finished Chemo and Having Fun

If I've been quiet on the blog recently it's for the best of reasons: I've been too busy having fun.

What a joy to have a few treatment-free, needle-free weeks to spend having long lunches and day trips!  And I am finally really feeling better.  I have a lot more energy: the limb-dragging fatigue has gone and now I just have the sleepiness that comes when you are finally sleeping at night again.  My embarrassing itch bothers me much less, as do the hot flushes which come less often and more mildly. 

It's easy to forget how far I've come: yesterday I knelt down and realised that I felt no pain at all.  Just a week or two ago, I couldn't kneel without intense pain down my thighs.

But there is always some two-steps-forwards-one-step-back.  My left arm - where I had the lymph nodes removed- has been stiff and sore again .  Apparently this is normal, my physio described it as something like fibrosis of the lymphatic system.  I have a new exercise which involves hanging onto the top of a door or high shelf and twisting: I'm finding lots of places that have never been dusted but it's working.

I have a new discomfort too, though this is rather more positive: my wig has become itchy and uncomfortable because my hair is growing.  But the new growth is so short, fine and white that I still look completely bald, so it's headscarf time.  I think my eyebrows might be coming back a little too, tiny fair hairs have appeared between the old, black ones.

Another couple of weeks and I will start radiotherapy.  This worries me a lot less than the chemo did, somehow I'd rather be zapped than hooked up to chemicals.  Besides, when you have slogged through five months of chemo, a mere six weeks of treatment doesn't seem that bad even if it is every day. 

The thing that was worrying me the most was (of all things) the parking at the hospital.  With my enormous car, the prospect of navigating the tiny basement car park and hoping for a space big enough to manoeuvre into every day was much more terrifying than being zapped.  But I have now had a little miracle.  A friend asked me what I needed during radio and I jokingly replied: a parking space.  And she has found me one!  Her daughter's boyfriend lives right opposite the hospital and has parking that I can use. 

So that's the logistics sorted, now I have another ten days to enjoy having fun before the treatment starts again.