And The Wind Cries Mary - By Holly Searle

I am not going to lie to you. I am absolutely terrified of embarking on my chemotherapy treatment. This whole cancer thing has been exhausting. I absolutely hate it. For the last five months it's been at the top of my agenda and I just wish it would stop. Sometimes I fantasize about just going away somewhere peaceful to digest it all, as it all just feels like too much at once.

The suspicion, the diagnosis, the advice, the education, the treatment plan, the operation, the recovery and now I will have to deal with the shitstorm that is the FEC-T chemotherapy treatment.

A few weeks ago, I had an appointment to see the oncologist. This was the part two if you will of my cancer narrative: they operate, then they decide the best course of follow on treatment to avoid the cancer returning within the next ten years.

So I am curious to meet with the doctor, to have this appointment and to find out what my next task will be. I wait 90 minutes passed my appointed time to see her.

When I finally hear my name called, she beckons me into her consulting room. She's no fool, as she obviously notices straightaway that my face looks like a wet weekend in Bognor, because she asks me if I am okay.

'Yes, I am fine' I tell her 'I am just a bit annoyed at having to wait an hour and a half.'

We proceed. We sit. And she asks me how long I have been dealing with cancer and if I could give her a synopsis of my cancer treatment. This tells me that she hasn't read my notes, not a great start. So I tell her the concise but detailed version aware that someone else in the waiting area has now taken my place and is checking their watch.

Mid flow, a woman enters the room. The consultant says 'This is my registrar, she wants to ask me a question about Mary.'

I pause, what now, or in a minute I wonder to myself. The registrar is silent, so I carry on talking aware of this woman now waiting to speak. There's a queue here love and if I don't say my bit, I am prone to forget all the juicy bits because the doctor hasn't read my notes.

Then the consultant starts to speak really really fast whilst illustrating the points she is making with drawings. I can't look and listen and digest it all with the added pressure of woman behind me waiting to ask about Mary.

She asks me if my hair is dyed and says that it will all probably fall out and that I need to be aware that this chemotherapy treatment can actually cause cancer to grow again in my body.

Then the desk phone starts ringing and the doctor answers it, but holds the handset in the air away from her ear and carries on talking. I think aren't both of these actions, the woman here about Mary and the person now listening about me in breach of some sort of code or something?

She takes the call and I am sure this is a set up. She hangs up and I ask her a question about the treatment she is proposing. I ask her what the percentage is of my cancer returning if you don't have this treatment. She tells me that there is a program online somewhere that explains all of this but that she really needs to speak to her registrar about Mary.

I ask her if she would like me to leave? She says no no no. I am to wait here until she comes back.

I am now alone in the room that I have waited over an hour and a half to gain access to. The phone starts ringing again. I am tempted to pick it up and tell them that she is not here and that she has left me alone during my appointment to have a meeting with her registrar about someone else.

I don't. But, I am tempted.

Then there is a knock at the door and the nice breast cancer nurse comes in. She asks me where the doctor is, so I say having a meeting with her registrar about someone else.

I am really annoyed now. 15 minutes of fast talking and diagrams, but I am not really that clear about what I am having and why I am having it. I later log a complaint and ask for another appointment with another oncologist.

Most of the information I have ascertained about the proposed treatment has been via the nurse, a booklet, my friends and the internet.

It's all pretty shit and is making this bit of the treatment a festival of anxieties for me. I don't want to me pumped full of poison that will make me sick and tired. Or have port inserted a vein next to my heart placed there via another operation. Or worry about the chemo ruining my veins with the possibility of damage to my heart or lungs. I am such a secret hypochondriac, that this is playing havoc with my nerves.

I do not want to do this. I haven't been brave, I have just got on with it, because that's the only option you have if you want to not have cancer.

But now my courage is failing as I do not want these chemicals invading my body and lowering my my immune system. I do not want to be vulnerable any more, I just want it all to stop.

I am in line to have some counselling when a therapist becomes available and I shall look forward to it as I am mentally bruised from all of this.

I used to love this book when I was a child about a bull that just like sitting under a tree and smelling flowers. One day he gets stung by a bee and jumps about and they think he is fierce and take him the Madrid the flight the Matadors in the bullring. But he just sits there smelling all the flowers in the hats of the seated ladies in the audience. So, in the end they take him back to his field, where he sits under the tree and just peacefully smells the flowers again.

That book, is the story of my cancer treatment and the way I feel about it.

Spit Spot!

Why Having Cancer is like being a Celebrity - By Holly Searle

From the moment you are diagnosed with cancer, all of these people whom you have never met, start making a massive fuss about you. They can't do enough for you as you slowly descend into the world of all things cancerous and how to treat them.

Appointments are made with very nice people who do all they can to help you as you head towards your initial treatment. In my case, this was my big op to remove the tumour from my left breast and then to reconstruct it, by importing living tissue from my stomach.

This is just the first bit. The cosmetic surgical replacement of the familiar, that now no longer exists because they found a lump of mutated cells within your breast.

As I have had my babies, I am okay with it, as I won't be nursing any more offspring. Plus, Only I look at my boobs these days, so as long as they look okay, that's fine with me.

The replacement reconstructed breast, certainly is worth the giant Jokeresque smile that will now and forever scar my lower abdomen.

And, throughout all of this, you are at the centre of it all like some highly worshipped deity. Then, all of a sudden, in recovery, it suddenly stops as you are home alone in pain without a healthcare worker in sight.

It's positively soul destroying.

But then, the reality of your cancer starts to kick in when you realize that the operation was only the start of it and that the real kick in the teeth is the follow on treatment. That bit where they inform you of how they are going to try and eradicate the possibility of your cancer returning within the next ten years by blasting your immune system with either or chemotherapy or radiotherapy, or both.

This is the nasty bit, as one of its consequences will make my hair fall out. Call me vain, but, it's the one thing I quite like about the way I look. I have a long fat face that reminds me of that Looney Tuner Droopy the dog in addition to my funny little piggy eyes. I am no oil painting. But I have always liked my lovely sunny yellow hair. I have never once dyed it even in my advancing years. It remains to this day a beautiful blonde colour. But now it will all be going. I will probably wake up to find it on my pillow or see it waving me goodbye for now as clumps come away as I brush it in a pathetic attempt at normality.

Apparently, two weeks after my initial treatment of chemo will see all my current lovely repunzel locks gone.

For the first time since I was diagnosed with cancer, I suddenly became really angry about these constant intrusions in my life. And this one just takes the fucking biscuit.

I will have to wear a wig, or a hat or something, until my lovely locks grow back.

I am also dreading the effect that the chemo will have on my body. Apparently, having this treatment, although it's the most successful, can cause another tumour to grow.

I really hope that isn't another shitty episode I will be an extra in, I really do.

I am not a celebrity, please get me out of here as soon as possible.

In the meantime, if you see me, I will be the cartoon dog in the wig, looking forward to next spring with new hair and hopefully, no more cancer.