Oh well, I am now at the end of my first week of radiotherapy. I am not sleeping well at all, but that started a night or two before the rads so can’t be blamed! I feel tired, but I think even that is more of an emotional response to getting back onto the cancer train again. I dragged myself through chemo, then had my surgery at the end of January, which went really well. I got the path report, saying the cancer was all gone, no trace left at all! I felt free of it, although I knew in reality that just meant there was no cancer in the tissue taken. I still had rads to go, targeting the chest wall, the Clavicular nodes and the Internal Mammary nodes. I feel like I got off the train for a while, lay in the sun (or the snow rather). I relaxed and played, had fun in the pub with my friends for the first time in ages! Now I am back in treatment, in this dark, dangerous world. I lie there, being irradiated yet again, not feeling free, not being chatted to or smiled at, like on the chemo ward, but alone with my thoughts and fears. There is no escape in the machine; my eyes watch the green lines on the ceiling, my ears hear the alarn telling staff to escape, the buzzing and whirring of the machines as they target areas of ‘concern’! I am tired, tired of all this, tired of worry, grief, hospitals and doctors. I am determined not to let this beat me just yet, but it is hard. Just another couple of weeks to go and I can then start living again. I got a taste of it last week, I know now that life does come back, madness and stupidity will return, things really will get back to normal for me. I won’t ever forget though, I don’t want to. Sad and hard as it has been, it is an experience that I have grown from. I have a feeling there is a lot more growing to come. No doubt it will take years before I fully appreciate what I, my family and my friends have been through. I have been given another chance at life, no guarantees, but every day is a bonus!
