Listening to the radio on my drive to work and hearing The Killers (irony?) telling me to 'Smile like I mean it', and thinking 'yes, lots of days I can' but today all I feel is like I'm choking with rage, tears, frustration, tiredness and struggling against all the voices telling me to 'be brave'. And so here I am, two hours later, writing my first ever blog having been sent home by my boss after having a rather specacular (and surprising - another first!) panic attack.
Yesterday, my very lovely husband has his first chemo, which in itself was very dull and uneventful in contrast to the last 3 years of our life. His cancer is back... or should I give it capitals BACK! In his lungs, lymph nodes and we are awaiting a new CT which they suggest will show in his stomach too. I say 'back' because this is not new (obviously!). He originally had a thymic carcinoid (yes, it's rare - we get it, yes it must be very interesting for you, Doctor, to see us) that was revealed during a chest xray as I sat nursing our 2 week old baby. 6 weeks later, 2 weeks in hospiatal, major chest surgery, a baby with colic and 3 other children left me feeling ....... (insert any number of words here). Chest surgery meant that he could not lift anything heavier than 1 pound for 6 weeks. A friend helpfully offered to get him a bell to ring if he needed me. I said she could, so long as the bell weighed 2 pounds........
We did the whole 6 weeks of radiotherapy and were told he was in remission but they had found he had a very rare genetic syndrome which meant he was likely to grow tumours so they would keep an eye. And so it was they found the next lot, 2 years later.
I don't really know why I'm writing this - to get it off my chest I guess. I am not a bitter, miserable person - in fact I'm generally quite cheerful and positive. I can even cope with a) cheering up all the other people who are upset about his cancer and cry on me and b) coping with the 'sh*t that's truly awful, that sounds like he's going to die' face that people keep making at me but today, just for this moment, it's my turn to let out all the stuff I keep in.
Right now, I don't care about my job, the housework, money, whether or not you have a cricket kit clean, homework done, I don't even care (shame on me) that you have a GCSE today. I don't care if you're late for nursery. I don't care that I haven't replied to the 37 texts asking me how Simon is. I don't care that you want me to say 'Good thanks' when you ask how Simon is. I don't care that you don't actually ever ask me how I am any more, that i have somehow become one half of a bizarre cancercouple and no longer have any separate identity or anything interesting to be asked about. I don't care about any of this or any of you.
Today, I just care that my perfect beautiful husband is so so ill and in so much pain. All I want to do is take it from him, rather than sitting helplessly by, stroking his head. All I want to do today is let the tears flow and hope that tomorrow is a better day.
