Could you go down to the Catering Department � Mrs Hammond hasn�t given me a lesson plan for you today. Say �Mrs Stepfordtart-Geetardude needs to know today�s topic� please.
Is that your name, Miss?
Ive been teaching you since September, Chantelle. How could you not know that?
Cos we just call you �Miss�, Miss. *student goes*
*student returns with a pile of textbooks* She says we need to learn about Carbohydrates and Deep Fat Fryers. I can�t remember what page she said it was on.
Deep Fat Fryers? Really?
Yes, that was it. Carbohydrates and Deep Fat Fryers.
Oh. OK. *hands out books while looking in the index* Right! Turn to page 54, where you can see the heading �Carbohydrates�. *flips over the page*������Err, Chantelle, could Mrs Hammond possibly have said �Carbohydrates and Dietary Fibre�?
Oh, yeh. That might�ve been it! I was nearly right Miss, wasn�t I!
Dumbass Things My Students Say #11ty bazillion and one
(Jooj, talking to a classmate about the use of tenses in Spanish verbs, whilst writing an essay on �my family�)
I cant think of anything else. I need to get an �imperfect� in there somewhere
How about something about your mum? �My mum �used to� be well, but now she isn�t�?
*another (male) student, eavesdropping* Jooj! What�s up with your mum?
She�s got breast cancer.
Oh no! I love your mum! *anxious* Will she�..will she have to have her boobs cut off?
No, I don�t think so. She�s getting treatment at the moment.
*relieved* Oh. That�s good. *wistfully drifting into reverie* I love your mum�s boobs.
Today I am actively engaged in bunking off having cancer. Several colleagues have been nagging me to take some time off but, as I don�t really feel properly �sick� at the moment, I figured I�d just feel a bit of a fraud if I did.
But, this week, I covered the whole of Monday for a �sick� maths teacher � her boyfriend lives a 200 mile drive away. She spends weekends with him. I don�t know what they get up to but it seems to make her �sick� on a Monday quite often. I also covered Tuesday and yesterday for a colleague who has had a total of 18 sick days this term (not in one go, they�ve been dotted about) with an �upset tummy�.
Ive got cancer and I have been sleep deprived to the extent that some nights I haven�t actually slept for more than an hour. I have been given Tamazepam which are great at getting me to sleep but which seem to stop working somewhere between 2.15 and 3.30 in the morning, after which I am generally actively engaged in �staring at the ceiling� and �sighing�. I spent the whole day at the hospital on Wednesday. With my mother. Im having a day off. Bite me.
My dad just called to say he is at Stepfordbro�s, getting my new car. My doctor just called to say she has a prescription for me for some 'stronger, better, more hard-core' sleeping tablets. Double HUZZAH!
As previously mentioned, I spent the whole day at the hospital on Wednesday. The two hour wait (again!) to see the oncologist was kind of tempered a bit by having my mum with me � not for moral support or anything, just for the company really. Mind you, it wasn�t really helped by a kindly, but woefully misinformed nurse who spent quite a lot of time chatting to us about my hair, which she assumed was �growing back after a course of chemotherapy�, rather than the �intentional edgy cropped pixie cut of the effortlessly cool�.
I�d decided not to take L as he�s not good with hospitals. Or waiting. Or difficult news. Or anything, really. He�d been leant on fairly heavily by his sister and others who said he �should� be there, but I could only see how it would make a difficult situation worse and after quite a lot of discussion (and some yelling, as I couldn�t actually get him to tell me what HE wanted to do, he kept going back to the �whatever you think is best for you� mantra, which is no bloody help at all), he did admit that he wasn�t exactly relishing the thought.
So we decided everyone else could just fuck off with their opinions already. Dad would come and get me, I would have lunch with mum and we would go together. L would stay in the studio and teach the basics of harmony to a violinist who wants to learn about music theory. That the violinist is also a retired social worker, dealing specifically in adult mental health, and a good friend was just coincidence, of course.
The oncologist had the results of my MRI and it turns out that the main tumour and its wee satellites are all pretty much confined to one area so they are going to give chemo a try and see if they can shrink the little bastards down a bit. That should mean (all being well) that surgery would be confined to getting rid of the lump rather than a mastectomy � Im sure Jooj�s friend Benny will be delighted! � and then some follow-up radiotherapy.
I start chemo next week (not sure what day yet � waiting on an appointment letter) and will have six cycles, three weeks apart. By my reckoning, that�ll take me around to mid/late April next year, when they�ll assess how much, if any, the tumours have shrunk and then do surgery on what�s left. The oncologist told me that the chances of �significant shrinking� are 70-80% which is reasonable odds, I guess�in any case much better odds than the ones for NOT losing ones hair if wearing a �cold cap� during chemo, which are only about 20-30%. At the moment Im 50/50 about the cold cap. If Im going to lose my hair I think Id rather just bloody well get it over with, rather than doing what seems like the cancer patient�s equivalent of the comb-over. Its not like I exactly have Cheryl Cole�s glossy mane to worry about, now, is it?
And another thing. If you see a completely bald lady, you generally don�t think �look at that woman�s weird ole hairdo�, you kind of think �ooh, chemo! Poor thing.� If you see a woman with little clumps of hair missing, or such thin hair that you can see daylight through it (much more likely with the cold cap), I think you�d be much more likely to stare. I think Id rather be wearing the �Brave Bald Badge of Cancer Chemo� than be �Have You Seen That Woman Round Chigley with the Weird Clumpy Hair Tufts?�. I might change my mind about that as, reading it back, it makes me sound shallow and moronic and like Im using cancer as a fashion accessory. Sorry. Im not going to go back and edit it, tho, as I want to be able to look back at this next summer and reflect on what an idiot Im being.
While I was at the hospital, they took the opportunity to slice me open and put a little �clip� in my boob where the main bit of the tumour is. This is so that if the chemo shrinks the cancer a lot, they can still tell where it was without having to do a kind of �I think it was around here somewhere but it seems to have gone�. At the moment, and because I am childish, I am choosing to think of this clip in my boob as being like sticking a flag on the top of Mt Everest. They put in some stitches and a big ole plaster so I cant see it or anything but Im really hoping I have to go through a security thingy sometime soon as I generally set those scanner things off anyway and it would be kind of cool to explain that sirens are going off because I have shrapnel in my chest. Or that I am Iron Woman.
Which I am, of course.