Chemo fug

Been back on the chemo since 2nd March, 3 cycles, nine more weeks of crap to make sure I get any lingering cancer cells out of my system as completely as  possible. 

I’ve now got through 4 weeks, and I have 5 weeks left, 35 days till the end of this treatment.  Can’t say it’s fun.  Much harder this time.  Waves of nausea for the first 4 or 5 days after each day 1 infusion that sit on you like a heavy cloak.  Nothing you can do except take the meds and wish it away.  

Ladies, I might just be getting a feel for what morning sickness is like, so my hat is off to you for handling it.  In fact I’m beginning to wonder if I am accumulating more of the maternity experience than I am naturally cut out for.  I’ve got morning, or rather all day sickness, I have cravings, my taste buds are all over the place, I’ve had a C section, or at least they cut through my abdomen, and once, long ago in Malawi, I got a sharp dose of food poisoning that left me with severe stomach cramps every few minutes for whole night that are the closest I will ever get to contractions.  I remember screaming with pain so badly that the scruffy house dogs sloped off scared and the 2 security guards outside ran off thinking I was being murdered.  OK I know, not the real thing...

I can’t concentrate on much for long, even this is an effort right now.  I get very tired and need to get some day sleep most days.  And my sense of taste has now deserted me just about completely, which is very dispiriting.  My nose leads me a merry dance along some tantalising memories of scent and taste, and then when I eat, nothing.  Or rather something like wet cardboard.  And yet Sooka tries so hard to cook me things that I’ll enjoy - I feel so ungrateful when I can’t finish, angry at the waste.

All I can do is to both receive the chemo gratefully and at the same time fight it with whatever energy I can find, if a little passively.  That means getting outside as much as possible to let fresh air clear the chemical fug.  We went to Chobham Common the other day and walked for a couple of hours in the sun, surrounded by open space, heather, birch trees, the call of birds, lizards and the amazing sweet coconut scent of beautiful yellow gorse flowers.  I got home tired but refreshed and could think beyond the chemo to the day, not so distant now, when this treatment will be over.

34 days & 23 hours from now...

Scans...

The oncologist recently talked me through my latest scans.  It’s pretty good, going to plan.  The margins of the tumour they removed were clear which is a good result.  They also took out several lymph nodes and found “involvement” in all but two, as expected though perhaps not to that extent.  The scans show a couple of remaining lymph nodes which are enlarged but he said that could just be my body reacting to post-surgery healing.  Later scans will confirm this.

It reminded me how vigilant I will need to be for any recurrence and what an insidious bugger cancer is.  How it just kicks off without announcing itself and lurks darkly doing its dirty work with impressive dedication, until one day you stumble across it as I did. If you’re lucky you find it early enough to fight back and send it packing.  Often though it’s too late, or at least late enough to have done serious damage that will leave you battling for the rest of your life.

Either way your life is no longer the same, your body is no longer only yours.  You’ve met a resourceful and determined enemy that wants you and its shadow will now be trailing you till the end of your time.

Not letting that get to you is the trick, the task, the new fight.  Not allowing this intangible, shapeless, timeless small piece of knowledge rule you, suffocate you, hijack your emotions and thoughts.  

How do I harness cancer’s dark energy and turn it back on itself?

The challenge is to live life as completely as possible, not wasting any opportunity or moment, giving whatever I can, making sure my loved ones know they are loved and sharing as much as I can, and retaining the ability to enjoy and feel that time alive is so valuable.  No regrets allowed.  That’s a great challenge to take up.

Bicycle broodings

Today was a gorgeous spring day and my first bike ride since the operation. I wasn’t sure how much I’d be able to do but it went fine, lungs and legs were good and I went further than I thought, about  4 or 5 miles in all.  That’s an important step forward for me.

Riding in the sun along backstreets, without much traffic to fight off, idle thoughts glide through the mind.  And despite the glory of day, this disease managed to tug me back to reality.  I started thinking why do I have this type of cancer?  Why not another type, an ‘easier’ one perhaps?  And I found myself doing a grim comparison, which cancer is the least undesirable type? Skin, minor organ, near the surface...

Ridiculous eh?  It’s still all cancer, trying to get a firm grip, clinging on for dear life, my dear life actually, insinuating itself unseen, biding it’s time, a chancer, a spiv looking for its break. Bastard

Baking

I baked my 1st, 2nd & 3rd carrot cakes ever. Modestly successful I can say: no. 1 & no. 2 tasted OK, 2 better than 1; they both rose though with a pronounced off-centre slope.  And no. 3, with Sue’s improved recipe, is light years better.  But not quite there yet.  Of course I have gone off the taste of carrot cake thanks to my rebellious tastebuds.

I will now keep baking, and inflicting the cakes on others, till I make the perfect carrot cake, the best in the world, one to make the gods swap their nectar for.

My next baking project is to make focaccia, but not any old stuff.  This will be the focaccia I used to eat as a child in Sestri Levante, in Liguria.  

A bread so gorgeously tasty, that it must have been made in heaven.  I intend being buried with a slice, well a few kilos actually to keep me company on the long journey to wherever.  So my quest is to recreate that so perfectly that it will transport me back to those golden, sunny childhood days and banish thoughts of chemo and cancer.  

I’ll report back.

Losing weight

I’ve lost a fair bit of weight, about 6 kilos which surprised me.  I hadn’t noticed too much, thought it was maybe a kilo or two.  I’m quite pleased really as I needed to and I’ll be able to wear a few pairs of trousers that were destined for the charity shops.  I need to be careful I don’t lose much more though, particularly with the difficulty I have with eating, as I need the weight to fight the effects of chemo.

Bit of an extreme way to lose weight this chemo/operation combination - not recommended folks...

Food, fuel and taste

I seem to be losing my sense of taste, and more worryingly my enjoyment of food.  Chemo gives you a strong metallic taste for a long time which can ruin most tastes, but more strangely I am finding a sort of revolving door of tastes, where something I ate in the morning becomes unacceptable by the afternoon, and my palate shrinks before my eyes.

Food more and more seems to be just “kirum’ (Korean for fuel) a tool for living, lacking that pleasure you find in new, startling, unfamiliar or just favourite tastes and textures.  Just combustion material for the engine inside - which of course is exactly what it is, but how dull if just that, how awful if devoid of the capacity to delight that makes life and the world we’re privileged to inhabit so special. I hope this is not it from now on. 

I’m also developing instant cravings, and I just have to eat the taste which comes into my mind there and then.  Mainly simple tastes: the other evening I was watching a movie called “Genova” with Oscar winner Colin Firth, and while they were eating I had the overwhelming urge to eat ‘spaghetti al aglio e olio’, so at 11pm there we were cooking the pasta!  Not a brilliant movie I have to say, and for me memorable only for featuring the magical Ligurian coastline where I spent so many happy summers as a child.  

Wow I can almost smell the pines and the extraordinary focaccia we’d collect fresh from the bakers every morning...  Now that’s a taste I will never lose!