Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got
Till it's gone
So Joni Mitchell sang - she wasn't wrong about nose hair ! I'm at the end of chemo and whilst shaving my legs or pits aren't missed at all, those little nose hairs that stop your nose dripping like a tap when you go out in the cold most desperately are. Are you with me ? You totally take for granted eyelashes, nose hair, ear hair ...all there to protect you from foreign invaders and the extremities. Huge quantities of tissue are stuffed into pockets when dog walking and packed into bags for shopping trips even. Hardly the most attractive look is a leaky snoz.
Then let's talk about eyebrows, now if you had told me in January mine would have taken a sabbatical by Xmas I would have laughed, unless one of my friends had shaved them off on a drunken night. Ironically the year I lose mine, the HD brow has become so popular that really no one would even know you weren't just following the trend ! I've gotten used to drawing on my brows now , at first I thought I am sooooo going to end up with McD's hoops or lopsided caterpillars. The best piece of advice I had was that eyebrows are not identical twins - clearly !
Such trivial mutterings you think, perhaps ...I've just escaped Docetexal jail, where it held me prisoner within myself for 2 days in the lifeless, restless, can't sleep, can't eat, pain and misery zone. Tax is really the only thing that acts as a depressant and suppresses my little ray of sunshine, maybe this is a good thing ...for everything needs balance I guess. Tax hasn't done it's job until it makes me cry , it always manages to. Last cycle from sheer pain, this last cycle ...from reality. Reality of what I've actually been through and it struck me ...this year hasn't slowed down at all like I thought. I just swapped the treadmill of work, life and socialising for the treadmill of surgery,chemo and hospital appointments. I hit a whirlwind of treatment 7 months ago and when you reflect on it, what time have you really had to consider it all ? You lost your breast, you got on with it, you lost your hair, you got on with it ...days for of nausea came and went -thankfully, days full of energy were enjoyed ...days of pain, hidden tears, getting on with it to not upset others. Wearing a brave face when facing situations you never hoped or imagined you would.
So here I am ...reflecting at the end of my chemo with a 5 minute pause before my next whirl of treatment to follow, my brain and body playing catch up. Part of me excited by the fact I'm nearing the end of this treatment and I can start to aim for new things in my new life, part of me apprehensive of what the future holds, whether indeed this treatment has even worked, will that uncertainty ever go ? I have previously considered that having a diagnosis of cancer is like throwing everything up in the air and seeing what settles when it falls back to the ground, I still think that's true but I am also concious in some areas you will have choices than others , like friends, hobbies and work. But just how the side effects will leave your body hmmm that's another matter, just how long will it take to not feel so tired or achy etc..How much will that effect what you want to do and how much you can do. That's where chemo reminds you it was in control. That's where patience and acceptance re emerge ..So to boldly and confidently go into the unknown go I ...that's kind of exciting too, in a strange way.
#there is no stopping anyone that is determined to achieve, the only limits we imprison ourselves with our own
