Secondly, I cant believe its been nearly two weeks since I was here last. I had a whole nostalgic �staying at my mum and dad�s house� entry half-written in my head but it kind of got eaten by some black dogs and by the time they�d finished with it, it was a bit mangled up and not really in a fit state to be presented. Some other time, maybe, as it was kind of a nice thing to write about and made a change from �the latest diatribe from cancer central�.
Thirdly, if you go out in sunglasses, you think you look like a rockstar but you actually look like someone wearing sunglasses. If you go out in a wig, your chief concern (apart from �is it windy enough for this to blow clean off my head and go bowling down the street of its own volition like an escaped muskrat�) is that people may be looking at you and thinking �that�s a wig�.
If you go out in a wig AND sunglasses, you feel like you are in disguise, and there is nothing you can do about the Mission Impossible theme tune which will be running through your head. It will play over and over until such a time as you return home and either take off the wig or remove the sunglasses. At fairly evenly spaced moments throughout the morning you may either find yourself thinking you are some kind of female Jason Bourne or will be gripped with an overwhelming urge to fling off the wig and glasses and shriek �It was ME all along, and I FOOLED YOU!!�. As the lady in the Boots pharmacy doesn�t actually know me at all, whether Im travelling incognito or not, Im not sure what effect that may have had. Anyway, wig + sunglasses = disguise. It could only have been bettered with the addition of a trenchcoat, or possibly a false nose and moustache.
I found this out this morning as I have not been at work � I have been at home with the sorest eyes in the history of sore eyes. Or possibly, somebody sneaked up on me in the night, removed my real eyeballs and replaced them with two pickled onions. Either way, Ive been �dealing with� them for a couple of days now; the pickled onions, AND their attendant streaminess which was making me look like I was crying ALL the time, (instead of just MOST of the time which is nearer the truth). So I phoned in sick this morning and took myself off to the doctors.
Its proper springlike here in UKshire, with sunshine and clear skies and the occasional bumblebee and EVERYTHING so I didn�t really want to be wearing my customary turban or quirky little hat but I didn�t feel quite brave enough to go �au naturel� what with it being Chigley and all, where you can get stared at (and possibly burnt as a witch) just for having a sweatshirt on with no dinner down it. So, I blew the dust off my wig (which I have worn precisely THREE times since I got it before Christmas) and put it on. It was also a bit of a trial run as we�re going to a party tonight and I think I might have to wear it. More on �social anxiety� later.
Ive now had it on for a full four hours�OK, I took it off once, so I could scratch my head, but I put it straight back on again � honest! I don�t think I�ll ever get used to wearing it. You kind people who said I looked like Jooj when I had it on, have clearly never seen pictures of my mother, as THAT�s who I see looking back at me in the mirror. Meh. I think its compounded by the bloody Docetaxel making me lose great clumps of my eyelashes and a bit of one eyebrow, too. I always doubted the explanation that eyelashes exist to �keep dust out of your eyes� � it seemed unlikely that a few curled-up bits of hair could manage such a feat � but it appears that they jolly well do, as every single speck of grit, dust, sand, and other detritus smaller than a half wall-brick has found its way into my peepers over the course of this week. This has made my already sore eyes water and stream, meaning I have had to stop every five seconds to wipe them and in the process, have wiped off any last vestiges of makeup that might not already have slid off my face.
Im having some �body image issues� at the moment, and the lack of eyelashes isn�t making me feel any more attractive. I could kind of kid myself I was just �working that Sinead O�Connor look� when I still had my eyelashes, but now I just kind of look �unfinished� and, if Im totally honest, without makeup I don�t look like a woman OR a man. I just look like�oh, I don�t know what�like a mutant, I guess. A �humanoid�. Like you�d look at me and scrunch up your face and think ��..there�s something not quite right there�.�.
While I was waiting for my prescription (artificial tears, in gel form � my eyes feel better already!) a nice lady in Boots helped me find a waterproof eyeliner and Im kind of hoping I can create a bit of natural-looking eye definition which wont slide off. I�ll let you know if it works. Im done with false eyelashes � they don�t stay on and even the �natural� ones look like two big spiders climbed on my face for a little rest.
In other news, I seem to have stripped myself of all extraneous emotions and now am only making use of �furious� or �weepy�. Sometimes, for variety, I employ both of these at once and then I like to add �incoherent ranting� but that doesn�t really count as an emotion in its own right. I know that this is largely hormonal (chemo + �being 45� = New! Instant Condensed Menopause!) but its still hellish. Hellish for me because even though I do recognise that Im being a complete bitch, I absolutely cannot do anything about it. If I try to stop the furious, I just hasten in the weepy, and if I try to stop the weepy I just end up frustrated and�you guessed it, furious.
Its also hellish for L who often (not always, but often) hasn�t really done anything to make me cry/yell but is usually on the receiving end. He keeps saying �Its not your fault, it�ll pass�, but Im not sure if that�s designed to soothe me or whether he�s using it as some personal mantra to stop him running screaming for the hills. He has been a bit of a cock over the last couple of weeks, leading to some very �big chats� (with added ultimatums!) but just occasionally the level of invective aimed his way has well and truly outstripped the level of crime committed.
Hormonal maelstrom notwithstanding, there is also the small matter of my recent meeting with my allotted surgeon to consider when we�re writing our dissertation on �Stepfie: Card-Carrying Mentalist or Justifiably A Bit Upset? Discuss�.
It had all been going swimmingly til then. The oncologist was pleased with how much the tumour/s had reduced, and Ive only got one session of chemo left (next Thursday) so he booked me an appointment with the consultant surgeon to talk about my surgery, which looks like it�ll be taking place around 14th May.
Ive had a couple of goes at writing about the next bit but I keep deleting it so apologies if it comes out without a Nobel Prize for Literature attached to it.
The surgeon seemed to think it was some kind of inconvenience that I kept asking questions � I wanted to know how much of a scar I would have and where it would be and stuff like that and, while he stopped short of actually tutting, I could see he was really impatient to be gone and he gave me the distinct impression that he thought I shouldn�t be bothering him with trivialities. As he was making his third or fourth attempt to leave, I asked �And what will I look like, afterwards?� which I think is a reasonable thing to ask. He shrugged his shoulders and said �Well, they�ll look different, obviously. One might look smaller than the other or you might have a bit of a dent but otherwise�.� And then he spread his hands in a �whatever?� gesture and was making for the door again.
It was only my �No.� that brought him up short. �A dent? What the..?� I started to say, and he looked genuinely surprised that this might be an issue. I explained. It is imperative for me to look �normal� after surgery. �Normal� for me means �actually still pretty hot�. He countered with �we have to make sure we�ve taken enough tissue to get rid of the cancer cells�. I said �Look. I know that getting rid of the cancer is more important than me still having an impressive rack but Im 45, not 75. You already told me I�ll have a scar which, on a man, might indicate �shark attack� or something cool like that, but which on a woman is going to say �eeew, scarred boobs�, and now you�re telling me I �might have a bit of a dent� or something else which you might think is OK but which screams �hideous deformity� at me? No. That�s not acceptable. That wont be happening.�
At this point the cancer care nurse stepped in. �Nobody can choose what�s normal for you,� she said. �You have every right to decide what is acceptable for you and your lifestyle. If, once the healing process is complete, you aren�t happy with how you look, you just come in and we�ll refer you to the plastic surgeon who will do everything they can do so make sure you�re happy.� Then she looked pointedly at the surgeon, who said �Well, yes, you can always do that if you feel you can�t�..� and then he tailed off. His face said �What the fuck is wrong with you? Its just flesh.�
Yeh, well, its MY flesh, Doc.
When he�d gone, I had a little cry while the nice cancer nurse held my hand and passed over the tissues. I started to say �I know Im being silly but�� and she stopped me. She said �No you�re not. We have a number of surgeons on that team. Some are more involved in the fields of reconstruction and cosmetic plastic surgery than� Well, you can decide who treats you and how that treatment is carried out and it is quite in order for you to request (and receive) any kind of treatment that is available.�
A couple of days later I plucked up the courage to phone and say I didn�t want that surgeon to operate on me. I said �I just don�t think he really �gets� me� and the nurse said �that�s fine�. Ive got another appointment in a couple of weeks to see a different surgeon.
My brother just called me to see how I am. That�s the first time in�err�45 and a half years. Slightly bizarre�but nice all the same : )
Later
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