Fuckinghellcockmybollock. I didn't realise it had been quite so long since I put my sparkly finger to my crumby keyboard. January. What have I been doing since motherfucking JANUARY that's made me totally forget to bloggy blog blog? I haven't eaten a whale sized Twix OR a mountain sized Mars Bar. I also haven't made any new friends called Arthur who also haven't taken me to a supermarket full of bees. No zombies bit me and no roaming zoo animals chased me all the way to China. None of that shit happened. I guess we'll NEVER KNOW. Maybe it's because my illness is somewhat monotonous. I'm not in the cancer Motley Crue any more. No more snorting chemo off hookers' asses. No more throwing drip machines out of hospital windows. It's just all like this:
Day 1
Today I was a bit tired. I looked at some stamps then went to bed.
Day 2
Today I was a bit tired. I looked at some stamps then went to bed.
Day 3
Today I was a bit tired. I looked at some stamps then went to bed.
Day 4
Today I was a bit tired. I looked at some stamps then went to bed.
And so on ad infinitum. I've been to hospital once or twice but the whole fluidy lungy hearty thing really hasn't been doing much exciting. I saw a lung specialist who was all like your lungs aren't doing this I don't think it's all those crazy drugs you take. He said he'd like me to see a heart specialist to rule out heart failure but that doesn't seem to have happened so we can all just presume I don't have heart failure? I mean, it's definitely beating and shit. I can confirm at least most of my body feels like it has some blood in it. Maybe we should chop off all my fingers and all my toes one by one to make sure the blood is getting everywhere? SOUNDS SENSIBLE BRAIN fankz jesus for all my clevers. I think the fluid around my heart has gone down a bit too which is nice.
So yeah, because my fluid hasn't got much worse and the heart part has gone down a bit they're leaving my drugs as they are now. It always seems to end up like that. Like we're about to lower my chemo dose but we never quite dare. A new excuse every time. "OH WELL IT'S GONE DOWN A TINY BIT SO YOU WON'T EXPLODE IN THE NEXT 24 HOURS SO LET'S ERR ON THE SIDE OF CAUTION ERR ERR ERR". Not excuse, wrong word. A new reason to be cautious. It's better to have a walking talking pail of water than it is to have a dead, drained and empty one.
I have been feeling a bit rough since I got back off holiday (MORE ON THAT PARTYPARTY LATER), as always my body caved in after being exposed to a wide selection of foreign germs and I became filled with Uzbek cough, cold and general roughness. We then had an auction at work and I have generally become a big exhausted mess. I'm so bloody glad it's been a bank holiday weekend, if I was at work today I genuinely believe I would have just keeled over and died in a corridor. Which is never good for business. If you were down Tescos and there was a dead woman in the fruit aisle would you still stock up on delicious watermelon? Actually now I've written that it doesn't sound too bad. Unless she was like face down in the melon section. In which case I imagine the police would have cordoned off the melons anyway because you know, crime scene contamination and all that shit. How well do watermelons harbour DNA evidence? Shut up brain.
I'm just proper short of breath today. Like, you know when you breathe out you can usually go for a while making windy waves of crisps scented air? I'm just like puff. Like the sound when a wizard vanishes. WHICH IS NOT ENOUGH PUFF. I think it would take me approximately 27 centuries for me to huff and puff and blow your house down. Bloody lungs.
Other than that it's all rather yawnsome healthwise. Got to have a bone marrow at some point soon. I changed GP surgery and they seem to actually be extremely helpful and I haven't had any getting my medication problems. My skin's been pretty good. I haven't lost any weight. TOP MARKS ME. I guess I do still find my tiredness levels rather annoying and I'm not a big fan of wheezing at strangers in lifts but in the grand scale of the universe I'm now seven years down the line and have all my limbs attached. YEAH, you read that right, I totally hit my SEVEN YEAR CANCERVERSARY the other day. FUCK YOU BITCHES. FUCK YOUR BITCH MOMMA TOO. SEVEN YEARS OF COMPLETELY NOT DYING. I AM THE FUCKING PRO QUEEN OF FUCKING PISSING ALL OVER CANCER'S MOTHERFUCKERING LITTLE FACE. That or medical science is bloody amazing. Probably a combination of the two. All the scientists do amazing science and I wee into a jug for them to measure. Remember those days? Those glorious days?
Christ I forget how ill I've been. I am very happy no one is constantly looking at what I do in the toilet anymore. TOILET FREEDOM. MY URINE IS LIBERATED. Seven bloody years. Six and a half since toilet liberation. Eighteen years old. That knock at the door. "It's those bloody Labour canvassers AGAIN for fucks sake we live in a council house of course we're voting fucking Labour". You have no blood, you need to urgently come to hospital. I remember one of the questions I asked was how long for because I needed to know if I needed to pack nail varnish. Priorities.When they told me I had leukaemia and they'd brought half the hospital staff like some weird cancer exhibit. "HEY DAVE HEY STEVE HEY CINDY HEY MINDY I'M OFF TO TELL A TEENAGER SHE HAS CANCER WANT TO COME AND WATCH IT'LL TOTALLY BE BANTS LOLZ". I'm still rather annoyed about that. I should really find whichever doctor thought that was a good idea and give him a stern Chesterfield stare. I can't remember if there were four or five medical staff there but I only ever saw one of them again. Thank the lord cheesus they shuttled me off to Shef hospital.
And here I am now, on my somewhat diverted life course. I'm like a river that was aiming for the Bay of Bengal but now I'm totally heading for the Sea of Okhotsk. EITHER WAY I'M STILL A BADASS RIVER. I'm using a lot of capitals today. I think I'm a bit overexcited. I like cancerversaries. I'm a numbers person. You have reached level seven antideath success! Hurray!
I actually chose to test that antideath success with another holiday. As I mentioned before I took my bright green suitcase and myself on holiday to Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan which was lots and lots of fun and lots and lots of bizarre. What kind of monstrous place puts carrots on hot dogs? I am ordering a hot dog, I don't want HEALTH, ergh.
I started off flying to Almaty in Kazakhstan via Kiev. Almaty is very nice with proper wide streets and a general nice aura. I arrived on some kind of day vaguely relating to Jesus so I got a free cake which is always very nice. I tried to go to the musical instruments museum but because of Jesus it was shut and I was not very impressed. I also wasn't very impressed by the height of many toilet doors in this area. I took a photo of this one because I thought it was a bit low but then came across quite a few that didn't even reach my hips. So yeah, I've shared a lot more intimate toilet time with the Kazakh people than I was expecting. I don't mind the squat toilet, I'm a pro at those, it's just when an impatient Chinese lady is literally staring you in the eye while you wee... It's just a little unsettling.
But my time in Almaty was limited as I had to get on a bus to Bishkek in Kyrgyszstan. Everything there happens in little minibuses and the more people they can fit in the minibus the better, hence me having the joy of being sat at the back alongside four people on a seat made for three. I got talking to the guy sitting next to me who could do some very basic English. He told me that his father has eighty four granchildren (he was one of eighteen) and couldn't believe how small my family was, nor that I didn't have children. He then spent the rest of the four hour journey talking about Ireland and the IRA. And when I say talking I mean him saying IRA BIG PROBLEM IRELAND over and over because that was the limit of his vocabulary. We got the rather remote border post below and he bought me the biggest chocolate ice cream I have ever seen. Seriously, it could have solved the famines of Africa in about 15 minutes. But this wasn't the time to tell him I'm not a big fan of chocolate or of ice cream so we all piled on the bus and I spent the next half an hour completely covering myself and my white top in chocolate as we bounced over every pothole in Southern Kazakhstan. When I eventually gave up I had to sit and hold the slowly melting bag of ice cream until we reached the border crossing about an hour later. So yeah, an excellent new friend.
Then I was in Bishkek which is supposedly a bit dangerous but I didn't really feel like it was. There was one point where I was waiting for a bus in the middle of nowhere and some guy pulled up in a car and was trying to make me get in and as I walked away he kept following me for ages so I just jumped on the next bus even though it was completely the wrong one. That spooked me a bit. At first the way some of the men behaved scared me a bit but as my journey went on I realised that's just how they behave normally. Being followed, being stared at (not just being stared at, a whole new level, one guy just stood in front of me and stared at me for a solid five minutes without saying a word), especially people trying to get you in their car, it's just the much more persistent Central Asian man.
I stayed in a really cool little room, it was a part of a local's house. Mine's the green door and below is the noisiest motherfucking cat in the whole of Kyrgyzstan. Outside my door MIAOWWWW MIAOW MIAOW until I came out to attention him. There was one day when my breakfast included a whole potato which was a bit cray cray. You say potato, I say potato is only acceptable at breakfast if it's in a hash brown.
Then it was off for one amazing plane journey across some of the highest mountains in the world. Seriously hardcore beautiful. And a child dribbled on me for the whole thing. He was standing on his seat looking at me and found me very exciting so decided to express this with a whole lotta slobber. FANKS. But I'm not going to add any pictures of that because you all know what a mountain looks like, instead I'm going to add a pic of the sign on the wall where I had some great teasting fried chicken. Yes, I am aware that's naughty but the local food is sooooo heavy. So delicious but so heavy. I needed a break every now and then for something 'normal'. Would you like some dumplings to go with your rice with your bread with your meat from your horse bread stodge meatballs? I'm still not sure I've finished digesting all the stuff I ate there. I think I may have grown two stomachs, one for everyday use and one for the never ending Central Asian bread.
Dushanbe and the whole of Tajikistan are so beautiful that it's almost ridiculous. Like, properly mental crazy beautiful. It's like visiting a different planet. The goats and cows there have a lot of attitude. The pavements don't have a lot of concrete. The President seems to really like himself and has put lots of pictures of himself up along all the highways and in the museums just in case you forget how much you love him. Facebook is banned to so if you do have a day where you question whether you love him or not you certainly CAN'T SHARE THAT VIEW WITH OTHERS. It's basically a really softcore North Korea but with a lot more beauty.
I went to Iksanderkul lake which is the most wonderful thing I've ever seen (google it srsly, it's a big glacial lake up in the mountains). While the three hour journey was easy and chill for me (well as chill as you can be driving on a dirt track next to a cavernous fall of thousands of meters with lots of burnt out cars at the bottom) I spotted my taxi driver paying no less than three bribes to get us up there. I wanted to stay forever but my driver said we had to bugger off because the President's son was coming to visit too and they needed to clear the area. Except we got stuck for quite a while because of road repairs. You know how in England they always leave a lane open so people can get past? Not in Tajikistan. In Tajikistan you sit and stare at them pouring concrete until they're done. Then we met a cow with proper attitude, just stood in the middle of the road and stared at us all wtf I was here first like fucking I'm moooving. We also had to break into a building site so I could have a wee. What fun.
Then was my day of crazy crazy travel. And what a crazy country I was visiting next. If you love paperwork and being 'randomly' searched ten times a day then Uzbekistan is totally the country for you!!! I got up early and got in a taxi to the bus station, then got in another taxi to the border crossing. Upon arriving it became apparent the only people crossing the border today were me and a Chinese truck driver. It was one of those borders where there were seven different checkpoints, each manned by a selection of armed men who keep asking you questions in Russian even though you can't speak Russian. So I just stare at them blankly until they give up and wave me through. There was one point where the entire Uzbek border force had congregated in one room to look at my tattoos. They looked through all the pictures on my phone, all the files on my computer, everything. It was actually my boyfriend's tablet laptop thing so I watched with baited breath as I have no idea what weird things he has hidden on there. Eventually though, they let me in.
Just when I thought I'd escaped bureaucracy for the day a policeman appeared from a ditch in the desert and told me I had to register. When I say told I mean he shouted PASSPORT at me until I did as I was told. I then got a taxi driver to take me to the town of Denau (we had to stop again to register my passport when we entered the town) so I could get my train but I'd booked my tickets online and the guy in Denau ticket office had never seen a eticket before. Much arguing ensued as his computer was 'broken' and bla bla bla and I ended up going to the next ticket office along the line who were equally useless so it was eventually decided I would just get on the train with my booking confirmation and HOPE FOR THE BEST. It was here (a small town called Kamkurgon) where I met the two sweetest little girls who totally made my stressful day a million times better. They thought I was the most exciting thing they'd ever seen. I had to do all their make up and they tried on all my jewelry (until mum came home and saw what little tarts I'd made them into and sent them back to work). They also made me a cup of coffee, the younger one came over with the biggest smile on her angelic face and she watched me drink every last drop. I was very nearly sick in the pot plant next to me. So I doubled my lifetime coffee intake in just one day, hurray?
I arrived in Samarkand in the middle of the night and my hotel had helpfully not booked me a taxi, luckily a random English speaking guy helped me battle the money hungry taxi drivers. This was another crazy beautiful place full of crazy beautiful mausoleums and madrassahs.
Uzbekistan is also a very good place to feel rich, the below picture is the massive pile of banknotes I had. So many banknotes that I couldn't fit them all in my purse at once! Their highest value is worth about £1 sometime, it's hard to convert it as the whole country works on two different rates, the 'official' and 'unofficial' one. Tashkent was next and I got in a lot of trouble at the train station and ended up being shouted at a lot. My crime? I bought my train tickets on a Russian website. HOW DARE YOU USE RUSSIAN TICKET THIS IS UZBEKISTAN ALL MONEY IN RUSSIA etc etc etc. Ergh. They search your bag every time you go into the metro stations. Taking photos of lots of things is very naughty. I nearly had a heart attack when a guy with a giant gun jumped out of a bush and shouted NO PHOTO when I tried to take a picture of what I thought was quite an innocuous building. A man also gave me two cloves of garlic and walked off that day. I also accidentally found the spot where all the local wideboys go to race their horses. I almost asked if I could have a go, then remembered that I once broke a rib coughing and hastily retreated.
Next was the train back to Kazakhstan where I ended up in a carriage with a Russian couple who seemed to have bought more chandeliers than any person could ever need or indeed carry. They were off to Omsk. I had pondered staying on the train for the full two days to Astana (my final destination) but I decided I would have gone stir crazy so got off at Shymkent and flew instead. I had an afternoon is Shym which I spent watching Captain America in Russian (can confirm that was a thoroughly confusing experience). I was also amazed that these two baskets of fruit survived in the hold?!?
Astana was very nice, very glamourous. I bought almost all the stamps in the Post Office, fuck any locals who want to send anything, Constanze the stampinator is HERE TO STAY. For two freezing days, anyway.
Then I trotted off home. At the hottest point of my holiday it was 34 degrees and when I got on the plane it was minus one so I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT SEASON MY BODY THINKS IT IS. HELP. Back to the real world, but with an Uzbek diseasy twist. Yummy.
My life since then has been all about coughing and work. And getting escorted out the Houses of Parliament by the police. Went for a tour there yesterday and forgot I had my swiss army knife in my handbag. WHAT A FOOL.
But, despite all this I am alive. Completely and utterly ALIVE baby.
And very happy to be :)
Constanzistan xXx
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