The first thing I should probably talk about is my many week absence. Many many many weeks. In fact, probably the longest absence since I started this blog back in the dark ages of my dodgy blood. For this I can only apologise and promise that I'll put in a good word with the big pineapple in the sky because I'll probably die before you. And dine before you. I never stop dining. Oh yeah.
Lots and lots has happened since I last put pencil to keyboard and as per usual I'm not completely sure where to begin. I've done a lot of things and thought a lot of thoughts and eaten a lot of Nik Naks. I seem to be a bit behind on my entire life at the moment, being a cancerface means if I get one little virus I lose about 500 years in the space time continuum. Eep. Oop. Aap. I guess the most important event was that for the forth year running I attended and spoke at this year's Find Your Sense of Tumour conference which was, as always, completely mind bogglingly amazing. The buzz you get from it every time it better than any high I've ever known. It's strange, you get on the train in the real world, full of healthy people and they're all as miserable as fuck and then you arrive at the venue and half the room is on crutches and missing and a lung and you can hear the party a mile off. Prosthetic legs swing around the room like you're in a gas chamber of laughing gas and medications rattle like a sexy maraca. It's an oasis of hope. Beautiful.
My talk went well, I did my usual mix of "LOOK I'VE GOT CANCER LOLZ" and "IF YOU TRY REALLY HARD YOU CAN BE A MASSIVE HILARIOUS IDIOT LIKE ME", people clapped at the end without much prompting and no one died at all, not even a little bit. So yeah, a success there. I am success. I also got to experience what life was like with a moustache. Which was different. I mean, as we know, I am freakishly unhairy as it is, plus I've spent quite a while being a complete baldy chemo coot, so having facial hair was really a very new experience for me. The Sheffield Cancer Massive (as we like to be known) did a dance for the showcase with all the boys dressed up as that ginger dance singer Kiesza which gave me a whole new viewpoint on my sexuality too. What revelations.
I must admit though I did find it very difficult at times to not have Naomi there. Obviously last year we were in all the same places having the time of our lives. I very nearly lost my shit when they player We Are the Champions at the end. I'll never forget that year when they played it and I turned around and Naomi was sobbing a bit and smiling a bit and she started me off and I just said something like yeah we were never all that good at being the champions were we and then we had a hug and laughed and now she's dead. I wasn't prepared for how haunting being at Centre Parcs without her would be. It was weird, sort of being followed around by Casper the Friendly Ghost. That conflicting emotion when you see a spot that brings back a happy memory then a slap when you realise that's all it is.
Speaking of the Happy Hunting Ground another one of the cancer crew has been taken from us this week. And not just another of the cancer crew, one of the even more select leukaemia crew. Tom died quite suddenly and it really was quite a massive shock because he was so incredibly well liked around the hospital. He was a brilliant, charismatic young man. I can't make it to his funeral which I am sad about, although also perhaps relieved as I'm not sure if I could take the survival guilt that's following me around of late. Everyone young I've know from the leukaemia ward has died. Jamie, Dan, Tom, the lot. Then, just a couple of days after I heard of the passing of another cancer friend on the other side of the world. It's horrifyingly relentless.
This did make quite a dent in my whole chemo-coming off chemo debate and strongly made me question whether I was doing the right thing in pushing to be taken off my drugs. I guess it's just remarkable how fast you can die. You can wake up fine and be dead by tea time. But in my heart I know it's really what I want. I must admit that I've now started to worry a little about my appointment in January. I'm slightly terrified that they're going to think it's a really bad idea for me to come off my cancer drugs. Actually rather terrified, I lie... I'm so set in this optimistic hope of being completely cured now that if they strongly advise I should stay on them then it'll feel like a death sentence. I just need to be rid of this illness now. Five years is a long time. It's not the cancer that annoys me, it's this half-ill no man's land that I've become entrenched in.
I guess a lot of it does come from the life I'm building up for myself. Obviously the major change over the past year for me has been accepting that I've fallen in love and found the one. As we all know I am the most painfully independent woman on the planet and take great pride in paying my own way in life and not depending on other people. This has been the case throughout my whole illness, having to ask anyone to do anything for me has been more painful than any of the surgery or broken organs. The only constant force in your life is yourself. I think the problem for me has been that I've always associated being in love with weakness. But it's not that and I've realised that you can be in love and be happy and still be the stubborn loner you've always been. Two don't become one. Two become 1.94 and you both lose a finger and three toes and everyone has a great time. And then there's my career, which is nice. Not that I really have a career as per such because having too many aspirations is sad but I am very happy in my job and my life and everything in general. It's just a new chapter. Excuse the painful cliche there but it is. Cancerstanze is dying and I'd quite like to kick her in the stomach once and for all. BYE BYE DODGY BLOOD.
Ack. I just can't lie, I am currently quietly going slowly a bit mad. January the sixth cannot come fast enough. I feel like that date will be the defining point of the rest of my life. That's the day I know if there is any medical optimism that I will ever completely not have cancer. If I will ever call myself a cancer survivor and not just a cancer ticker over-er. What a luxurious thought. All I want for Christmas is haemoglobin. When the snowman brings the chemo. When santa got stuck in the hospital.
I also went on a little voyage to Morocco while I was away, a place where I shall always be known as 'nice colour'. My colour is very nice, they've got the right idea. I presume they were talking about my hair and not my skin colour in some bizarre positive racism fashion. The better ones were people who just shouted 'green' at me and also weird things like 'Shakira' and 'Lady Gaga' and 'ginger'. Marrakech really is an amazing city although a somewhat bizarre experience. I saw a lot of cactii. I am a big fan of spiky plants. And tagines. And eggs and mint and shiny things and sticky cakes and tiles. Here I am in the ruins of a palace doing my typical waves your arms around to indicate that you are having a party pose:
What fun. Shit is good. Everything's a party. Apart from my knees. My knees are a bucket of water.
Anyway. I have to go and shred some top secret documents. And by documents I mean six months worth of drug packets because I don't want anyone to steal my identity via cancer drugs. That would be a big kick in my cancer balls, OH HI WE ALREADY TOOK YOUR BODY BUT NOW WE'RE ALSO HAVING YOUR NATIONAL INSURANCE NUMBER MEGALOL. Fuck the world. I love my shredder.
Have a wonderful Christmas everyone. I hope you all have a festive bang and get so drunk on new year's eve that you climb K2 and joyride a spaceship and get bum fingered by the most handsome ostrich you've ever seen. Something like that. And prepare yourselves for 2015. I have a feeling it's going to be a good one.
Constanzistan :) xXxXx
P.s I don't know if you remember but about three years ago I was filmed and interviewed for a DVD to be given out to newly diagnosed cancer patients. They finally finished the films but I find them so cringey to watch that I can't bear to post them on here. Maybe later. I bring shame on myself and all I know.
P.p.s I almost forgot about doorgate. I was trapped in my living room for 16 hours because the door handle broke. It was very dramatic, the fire brigade nearly had to be called. We had to wee in tupperware tubs and throw it into the river outside my window. What an exciting life I lead.
P.p.p.s Oh lord. Oh pygmy goat jesus cat I want to not have cancer anymore. Nearly as much as I want another bowl of Weetos. Priorities. As much as I want to be healthy cereal will always be my primary life concern.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Aha! You have a thought!