4th August 2013

So I'm very nearly half way through treatment and feeling pretty good.  Like I had said in my previous blog that I had very tired days with sickness.
Well everyone came over that Sunday and it was like my sickness had just vanished.  I managed to stay up all night without having a quick siesta between courses and even had a glass of wine!
Go crazy Alex!!

It seems that my body has three days where it allows me to be weak and ill and tired and then it snaps me out of it and makes me get up and carry on. It is like a really bad hangover.  You know, those crazy nights where you drink far too many jagerbombs because it's a really good idea at the time, followed by heaps of sambucca and you get home at five in the morning hammered and laughing.  Then you wake up in your pit the next morning saying you'll never drink again. All of a sudden you wake up a couple of days later, (a word to you young girls watch out, hangovers last a lot longer in your 30's than in your 20's!) feeling fine and you are ready to do it all over again.  That is how this is and to be honest I've had enough hangovers to know how to handle them.

Obviously now, as I have shaved my head I am wearing head scarves in public, which I may add I am quite enjoying.  I can mix and match the colours and styles and almost have a new hair do every day.

Having no hair is much more versatile than I realised.  I can have a different style depending on how I am feeling.  Although anyone who thinks having no hair is cheap think again!  I have become even more high maintenance since shaving my head!
My wig man wants me to die my hair peroxide, which I will but not till my chemo is over just incase I dye it and it all falls out!  I do not need a peroxide head.

It is very strange being in my mind right now.  I still have my eyelashes, eyebrows, all my body hair(I thought there were some perks but I am still shaving my legs!)  In fact the only thing missing is a full head of hair and even that has not completely fallen out.  It has actually grown which means the cold cap so far has been very successful.  I mean I'm not talking lashings of locks but a couple of centimetres.  I wear my scarves because I want to, not for necessity.  I do feel sometimes that I should look a certain way?  I should look ill right?

But what does an ill person look like?

This was the problem I had at the very start of diagnosis.  This was what frightened me the most. That I would lose myself.  That I would look ill and pale and have no hair and walk around looking like a 'cancer' patient.   That I would forget who I was and be a constant reminder when I looked in the mirror that it wasn't my reflection anymore but that of a weak girl, losing her fight with life.
But it hasn't happened.  Nothing that I feared has happened.  Even when I stare at my reflection all I see is me staring back, with slightly less hair and higher cheekbones!

I'm still me, I still wear my full make up, my sister is still spray tanning me, I am still going out, working, seeing my friends.  The only thing that is different is that Clive is hanging around.  And I am feeling slightly guilty or slightly concerned that I shouldn't feel this good.  Are the doctors giving me enough drugs? 
My sister said she thinks I am made of steel.  It must be my mothers genes.  My grandmother had cancer and after an operation at the age of 80 years old,  she woke up,  ripped out her tubes and insisted she went home.  I must take after her. 

Yesterday I went to a friends engagement party.  I got dolled up, put on my wig, I call her Tallulah although I should just call her barbie as she is very blonde and off I went to celebrate.  I had a couple of drinks, messed around with my friends, took stupid pictures and then at 1.30 am I decided I had had enough and I drove everyone home.

My life has not changed at all.  In fact it may be better.  Maybe because it has opened my eyes to all the wonderful people in my life and it had made me realise even more, that I cherish my family and friends so much.

All we did last night was laugh.  Laugh and take pictures.  A great night in my book! I am hoping that this is my good karma.  That the universe has dealt me this bad hand and as a reward for coping it is allowing me not to suffer? 

(A few pictures, you get the idea of the evening with my crazy friends!)

Or maybe I am being daft and the next time I write I will look terrible, feel terrible and want to curl up in a ball and hide!

Who knows, but for now I am enjoying not being too ill and loving my life as a 'normal' person. Well as normal as one can be.  Normal is such a funny word, I have lost all meaning to it. 

My next chemotherapy is on the 14th August.  I do hope  I recover quickly as I have a busy weekend with two birthday parties to attend.  It's all go. 

Clive is trying to slow me down but I will not let him win.
xx