My Bad Boob

A couple of weeks ago, I watched the film ‘Dallas Buyers Club’. I went expecting to see a gritty portrayal of a rodeo star’s experience with HIV. I wasn’t expecting to spend most of the film scrunched down in my seat, crying fat, silent tears into my scarf. I cried when the doctor surprised the main character with the news he was a dead man walking, because I remember clearly the shock and denial I felt the moment my doctor issued my death sentence. I cried because I remember thinking - in the midst of the most horrific conversation of my life - “This is why they tell people to sit down for bad news.” If I hadn’t been sitting when he told me, I’d have surely found myself on the floor in a broken heap.  But the scene that hit me like a sucker-punch to the back of the head was when the protagonist’s young friend, a transvestite, told his father he was HIV positive. When the young man broke the news to his father, he apologised.  I cried, because when I told my parents...

broken-hearted broken-winged flightless and breathless dizzied and panicked the heart beats faster in the bloodless chest the future waits waits in a cell sacrificed on a hard table to a blind blade to shapeless cottons to bacterial junctions to a vase of roses and carnations wilting in the summer heat teeth shudder in the worried mouth where words betray their silenced tongue resurrected follicles punctuate scarred arms conversely perversely the skin round the eyes grows smoother each day paper thin skin twitches in remembrance granite feet support leaden legs lactic acid lingers each muscular stretch a delicious pain a reminder of the one-toothed bite the nails in this walking coffin yellowed striated well-hammered like the man on the cross who died for my sins

When I first met with the oncologist, he said I was a good candidate for neo-adjuvant chemo. I asked why, thinking it was something to do with my age or fitness or tumour-type. "Because you haven't once said you want the tumour out right now." He was right. It hadn't even really occured to me that it would need to come out. I didn't see it as an invasion or as the enemy. It was just part of me. My cells. But the day had come to evict the small bundle of cells which threatened to overrun my body, multiplying exponentially until they had colonised my liver, my lungs, my brain and my bones. I was nervous - frightened, even - of surgery. Of the physical act of being induced into unconsciousness and sliced open. But by the time I had had my last dose of chemotherapy, I was more frightened of not being sliced open. I am sure I felt my tumour recede each cycle around days 7-15. Sometimes I could feel a reduction in its size overnight! But equally, towards the end...

Just over a month ago I had my third and final dose of the taxing Tax. Docetaxel was pretty hardcore stuff; the first dose landed me in hospital with uncontrollable pain. Doses two and three were reduced to 80%. I was again unhappy with the dose reductions, in case they reduced the drug's efficacy, but kind of relieved in a way, as hopefully my risk for further complications brought on by this intense poison will also be reduced. Even with the dose reductions, I suffered some unpleasant side effects - feet that felt burnt, then peeled in sheets for weeks; twitching eyelids; yellowed and blackened fingernails; hypersensitivity to noise and light; impaired cognitive function and short-term memory problems and muscles that still ache as though I've done a heavy workout in the gym. But overall, four weeks on, I'm surprised and amazed by how good I feel. The human body's capacity for healing itself is absolutely incredible. Yesterday, I was admitted to hospital for my surg...

I'm a pretty good sleeper, on the whole. I haven't always been - for years I laid awake in bed each night, sometimes for hours, waiting for the curtain of somnolence to fall across my eyelids. Whilst pregnant with my third daughter, I began listening to a relaxation CD at bedtime. Perhaps the strain of being pregnant for a third time in four years was the real cause, but I'm pretty sure those ten minutes I was guided by a soothing voice to "...three...two...one...relaaax..." helped me on my way to gentle rest. Sleep problems are very common amongst people with cancer - stress and anxiety coupled with side effects of medications conspire to steal zzzzzzzzz's when they are most needed. Fortunately, I have rarely experienced disrupted sleep, for not long after I was diagnosed, I was given another relaxation CD by a friend's mother (I encourage you to check out her website ), which has helped me to find sleep quickly and easily most nights. -------------...

One of my most oft-uttered phrases as a mother is 'Be careful.' I say it when they're climbing a fence, or climbing a tree. When they are mucking about on the floor with each other. When they get out of the car. When they run ahead of me up the path. When they climb up on a chair to fill a glass from the tap, and when they carry that full glass across the kitchen to the table. Why do I say it? What does it mean? I've noticed that mothers say it a lot more than fathers. Why? Do mothers worry more? Are they more protective, more concerned? I have asked myself these questions many, many times over the years. In recent times, I have come to think it is a useless, pointless thing to say. I wonder if they even hear me. I certainly don't think the words inspire a change in their behaviour; they do not hear me and thusly adjust their bodies' forward motion in avoidance of danger. In fact, I have come to see the words as suggestive. As undermining. Harmful. ...

Chemo number two went without a hitch. I sneaked a peak at my blood test results and swelled with pride at the sturdiness of my little red and white soldiers. My liver is happy and my kidneys are coping well. The bad news is they decided to reduce my dose. My little holiday in Emergency Admissions suggested to my team that my chemo dose was too high, and my sore spleen finally convinced them to spare me the Neulasta injection this time (spleen rupture is one of the rare side effects). So they took a cautious approach and only prescribed me 80% of my previous dose of FEC 100. I'm not happy about this. Other than the neutropenia, I coped well with my first chemo dose. I was certain that most of my discomfort was down to the injection and the cold I was fighting rather than the chemo itself. This cycle - I'm currently on day 6 - has been embarrassingly easy. Some very minor digestive niggles (enough to notice but nothing that would interrupt normal service), a touch of mil...