Awakening

What is it about the turning of the earth, of the new year and the coming in of spring? It feels both vital and ancient. Made new each time. I was glad my treatment ended with the spring. It made returning to the world that little bit easier. I’d expected that it would be easy, and natural, and great, coming back into the world, but actually

Buddies!

Hello there, and best wishes for the festive season, I hope you’re having a good time! I know I keep coming up with reasons excuses as to why there are such gaps between my writing at the moment, but it does feel that this is a good time to post this section of that time. I’m a lucky lady, I’ve got a good crowd of friends, and they are a crowd as well, they do different things in my life, there are those who I can have a great time with, those I can share fears and worries with, those who will help me out of a jam, when I inevitably get into one, those for

Counting Down

I have an apology to make, for I think I may have been avoiding writing this post. I’ve missed a number of key moments that it would have been savvy to tie in with, the end of a friend’s chemotherapy, my own diagnosis anniversary, and more beside. I suppose there’s that sense of and ending. This isn’t the last post on this blog, but it’s the last one about chemotherapy. I wonder, do you avoid ending things? Last episodes, last pages, relationships, biscuits, things that are more comfortable being there. 

An Amazing Bunch

Hi there, 

well my intention was to blog each week, but life and laziness and a small crisis of what am I doing this for, has got in the way. Apologies for that. That means I’m about a month behind my original schedule now, but providing you’ve got the time, if it takes a little longer, I’m ok with that. I had one of those moments this week where you question whether you’re good enough, whether what you’re doing is worth it, because my lovely friend who’s blogging in real time through her cancer journey absolutely nailed the description of

Hair

Today it’s all about hair. It’s one of the most divisive things about chemotherapy. People often ask “Will my hair fall out?” hoping that it might not. With my type of chemotherapy, it invariably does. If you’ve been reading along with my blog you’ll probably be very unsurprised to hear that I wasn’t really that bothered. I love change. Besides having my hair washed, the best part of going to the hairdresser is the snipping of scissors and the reveal at the end, the transformation. The new me. Do you enjoy that? 

Knowing that I didn’t have to go to work, and that my hair would fall out allowed me to pretend I was a daft young thing again, and

Drugs

It’s a weird thing is chemotherapy.

I got stuck after that sentence for quite some time. What else could I say? I wanted something to introduce the poem I’d written, but I felt like I’d managed to capture in my 6 words, the oddness and wordless quality that chemotherapy brings. I can’t really explain

The Build Up

You can’t imagine how it’s going to feel, but you’re pretty sure it’s awful. After all, you own a TV and you’ve seen grainy pictures of bald women in close up on the front page of tabloid newspapers at the garage. Everybody you know is related to/knows/met/heard about someone who had a terrible time of it. Their hair never came back the same - “it’s curly and