A Much Better Cocktail

Fuck me. I've been away for two months! By away I don't mean away away. Away from here. Not away from beautiful Luton... Actually that's bullshit, yes I have been away from Luton. I have been semi away. Partially away. Away divided by 4. I went to Georgia and Armenia and Ukraine and did lots of fun stuff. But that was just for two weeks.Two little weeks that seem like an AGE ago now. Dinomenia. A CENTURYYYYY. I also did some more talking to INSPIRE THE YOUTHS and all that shit. And if by inspire you mean discuss your vagina in front of 13 years old then that's EXACTLY WHAT I DID. As they would say, yolo. But I'd rather have a rolo than a yolo. AND there were developments in my freezer department. So much to talk about!

The main thing that I am pleased to inform you about is that the whole OH SHIT I AM NOT A BUCKET OF HEALTH scandal that has taken over most of this year is over. My brain has put it to bed. The first week or two after were a bit like oh lord I am Queen Cancer but then you just kind of forget and the wind blows it over like a rusty street sign and everything ticks that you're being ridiculous. My holiday put a lot of things into perspective. I became really poorly while I was out there (caught myself a big virus lung infection job) and I guess I did realise it is all a lot more about how well I actually am than I thought. Who gives a fuck whether I've got cancer or not as long as I can still holiday in war zones and eat pig's ears and have a fab time?

And that's it. That's the only goal I'm working towards. The only thing I should care about is having fun. Cancer can bugger off, I am not talking to him. I am not in control of my cancer, he's not some weird little baby of mine. There is nothing I can do to magically cure myself of the little bloody parasite. No quantities of carrots or deep thinking in a cave or licking spiritual rocks will make him fuck the fuck off. So I'll just sit him in a corner while I dance around my glittery cheese totem pole.

The whole holidaysuperillness also made me be a bit more impressed with myself (GO ME) and how good I am at managing my illness and working around it and doing as much as I can without killing the life out of myself. I'm like some trained professional. I guess most people only have cancer for a year or two so they never get past the intern stage but I'm like the fucking CEO of Cancer Skills Incorporated. When I was in Georgia and Armenia I was too poorly to walk more than about 20 meters so I either just did my sightseeing on foot REALLY SLOWLY with A LOT OF CAKE BREAKS (I'm not even going to begin to admit how much cake I ate because you'll probably have to report me to the police) and for a couple of days just hired taxis to drive me round (which sounds reallty luxurious but that costs about £20 quid a day). Here I am at Garni Temple on the sunniest and hottest day in the entire universe:

I know that's a bit of a shit picture but travelling by yourself means all your pictures of yourself are usually a bit rubbish, this one was taken by my very lovely but also very old taxi driver who really doesn't understand touchscreen phones. He kept putting it next to his eye and of course with the language barrier it's quite hard to tell him how to use a screen that he can't see because it's too sunny :D This was also the same day that a monk tried desperately to make me go down a well and think about god and be cured and shit. Ain't no well deep enough to cure me of my sins!

I did have a lot of fun though. It was nice to hide far away. And I'm off again in a couple of weeks, off for a romantic birthday trip to Brussels for the weekend. Yep, you heard it here first, Brussels is the new city of love. Fuck Paris. They can have all the EU shit in return. Going to look at some battle sites and drink one or two beers (wildchild) because that's all my puny cancer body can take these days, That's right kids, I'm nearly 25. Now I've had cancer at a total of EIGHT DIFFERENT AGES. Three two one I'm the bomb.

I also went away to glamorous Lichfield to do another one of my motivational DON'T BE SAD IT'S ONLY CANCER talks to a younger than usual audience at a conference (posh sounding word alert). Thirteen to eighteen, a scary age range. I am not Beets by Drey or an iGroupofdolphins. I am no longer young and trendy, I live with a man and do the washing and feel drunk when I have too much shandy. But, I told them about my inspirational life and my inspirational fanny string and my inspirational lack of qualifications and in return they gave me a feedback rating of 9.3/10. Proper chuffed there. Usually I make hash browns out of everything but I am shit good at talking about my leukaemia filled fanny.

Speaking of my leukaemia fanny I should really tell you about what I guess it on the face of it is some quite brilliant news but still of course comes with an additional bag of questions and confusements. Remember I've previously told you about how they can only keep my eggs until I'm 28 and that was causing me minor stress because I am not going to want any womb parasites before then or if indeed at all? Well, I had a chat with a babies doctor at the conference and it turns out that has now changed (the EU changed their mind recently) and instead of only being able to keep them for ten years it's now FIFTY FIVE. So theoretically I can have children until I am 73. There is one less barrier to me having children that I don't want... Woohoo? And that's it. It sorts of changes stuff and doesn't change stuff. I still have half the eggs I need to have a baby, I've still had masses of radiation to my womb making it like a barren wasteland and I still won't even consider children until I'm far over the recommended age for someone with my health background to try IVF. Plus of course you can't try for a baby until you've been off chemo for over a year and I'll be on it for a few more years at least. Plus I don't want kids. So it's a kind of hollow good news. I don't want good news about being able to have a baby! I know that sounds ridiculous and selfish and stupid but why must that be my good news, haha. OF ALL THE GOOD NEWSES I COULD BLOODY HAVE IT HAD TO BE ABOUT BABIES. But seriously, jokes aside, I guess I am happy about this. There's more than one way to cook and egg.

We've also had two very significant deaths in our cancer friendship crew since I last wrote. Two friends passed away on the same day which was really quite the shock to the system. They were both vaguely expected but then not expected at all. You can tell me someone's dying a thousand times but they never really seem like it. It's often to hard to equate the illness with the person in front of you. People say it about me. "Oh I forget you're ill because you look so well and you're so cheery etc etc etc". Just goes to prove how much a rosy outlook can make you forget.

Anyway, as always, I should go and do something useful ot productive or at lease put clothes on it's quarter past four in the evening you slovenly wench. OH BOLLOCKS I just realised I've left my favorite dress in a bowl of stain remover for five hours I have a deep suspicion that it will have no only removed the stain but also the colour and the thread and the material and three middle aged men called Barry. WHO LEFT CONSTANZE UNATTENDED?

BYE THE FUCK BYE,
Constanze :)

P.s Dress survived. I can now wear it to my best and oldest friend's hen do. We are making cocktails which I never noticed before has the words cock and tails in it both of which are words resembling a penis. Don't ever say my Oxford education was a waste!

P.p.s We also got pet dwarf hamsters, Alan and Tuva. Alan belongs to my boyfriend and Tuva belongs to me. Alan is friendly to us but a bossy bastard when he thinks we're not looking. Tuva eats even more than I do and it surprisingly hefty for a dwarf hamster, a bit like a furry brick. They both have absolutely no manners and walk over each others head as if it's the polite and normal thing to do. Overall though they are very nice and cute and have the tiniest little tails that make even hardcore Northern woman Constanze descend into a puddle of coos and love hearts.