Wednesday, January 14:

I've been out! Truly out, on my own, driven myself and actually brought something!I know that some of my "imprisonment" has been self-enforced. I have deliberately set about not connecting with people because of the chemo and trying to keep healthy.

I am also a busy person and can find lots to do at home, so I am never bored, believe me. But...being at home so long makes you doubt yourself and recently I have found myself making excuses for not going out. Too cold, too tired, too crowded etc.

Well, today, with Laura on work experience, Alan at work and most of my housework completed I thought I should try to get something for Laura's birthday and so I drove myself to somewhere fairly near in as straight a line as possible, Matalan, actually.

Of course I would have to choose the foggiest morning we've had so far, but I was determined to break my routine and make this the first day to becoming independent again.

Actually, the reason why I am so upbeat is because if I was still having chemo then this would be the week and...I'm not! Yipeeee! Although I am still very tired and "under the influence", psychologically, I feel so much better, so free and light and happy because of all the things I have ever done in my life, chemo was the worst thing as far as I am concerned.

Not because it was painful – it never was - and it could be argued that the mental effects were all my own doing, I don't know. What I do know is that I hated it, hated going there, even though the staff are truly wonderful, hated filling my body with all that stuff and absolutely hated the after effects which were out of my control.

It's that control thing again. You see, physically I can put up with most things and they can be kept in check with medicines, painkillers, even bandages, but mentally, well, that's different - and scary.

When your mind won't work in the way you expect it to and there are such dark, disturbing thoughts lurking about in there then it makes you feel as if you are truly going mad. I can only say that I really hope I never have to go through that part ever again so fingers crossed for me, please. Enough is enough.

Wednesday, January 21:

I seem to be reporting in to my blog less often these days, but that is because there's nothing much going on health wise as I'm a "lady in waiting" – for radiotherapy.

However, one thing has taken up residence in my life since I last wrote in here and that is the Arimidex tablet! Now, I read far too much sometimes about what these things do. I need to know far too much for my own good – I'm not nosey, just inquisitive and as I have said before, knowledge is power and that makes me more in control of what's going on.

Since I have known about Arimidex I have, of course, what do you expect, researched it as much as I have been able. I have surfed every site I could find and been to every help topic I could think of and read despicable things about it!

I always reason that if you expect the worst then anything above that is good and I am grateful for. I suppose it could be said that I start off with the glass empty and expect to fill it so I'm not sure what that makes me (polite answers only, please!) but it has worked so far.

I had been morose and tetchy (me?) for several days before the dreaded "taking" day last Friday (16th). I hadn't really said anything to anyone because there was no choice about this anti-cancer tablet which is going to destroy my bones, deprive my body of any female hormones whatsoever and will probably make me feel sick (when haven't I been through all this?) and generally mimic the symptoms of the menopause which I never had in the first place.

Websites I have found useful:
Breast Cancer Care
Cancerhelp.org (the patient information website of Cancer Research UK)
Netdoctor.co.uk
Scarf Studio (scarfs and bandanas)

So, I was feeling hard done by and extremely fed up thinking this is going to be the end of me feeling good and I have had such a good run so far. Lately I have been far more "on the ball" as the chemo fog has receded.

Alan said he preferred it the other way as I now keep finding jobs that physically I'm not up to yet but mentally want done e.g. pruning the apple tree, painting the gate – you know, men's work, really!

More recently I have been able to start planning the shed project and Cliff was round the other day for several hours while we priced and plotted and looked at my feeble cardboard model of how it should look, (no, I really did make a model – so sad!), but how I enjoyed it all.

Come the spring it will all kick off and I am determined to be in there, loading the skip, helping with the cement base, I can hardly wait. I should have been a builder shouldn't I?

Anyway, the day came and I had decided to take this pill in the evening and then maybe the terrible side effects would happen during the night and be less disruptive to me and everyone else.

I imagined myself with my head down the toilet (again!) trying to fight off the hot flushes without breaking my fragile bones while bravely putting up with aches and pains described in the leaflet. I went to bed and...nothing! No, not one thing happened. Give it a chance I thought, it hasn't really kicked in yet.

This is a week on now and rather pathetically and expectantly I had pre-booked a doctor's appointment for this Friday (one week to the day of taking) so that I could go and moan about my "side effects" and get some help with them.

I suppose I could keep looking on the bleak side and say it may still happen, but that's not me, really. I've filled that particular glass now and learnt a lot from that episode. Not everything is bad nor will it affect you in any or all of the ways they say. I've realised that most things are transitory and five years on these tablets, while seeming like a life sentence, is in fact a short blip, not so much a life sentence as life saver and it's free now, too!

Lynn's coming to lunch today, well a bowl of (homemade) soup and a sandwich followed by a (homemade) cupcake. Am I boasting a bit here? Yes, I am. My cooking skills are such that I feel able to offer them up for consumption to someone other than the family – Lynn is the guinea pig – sorry, Lynn!

If nothing else I have discovered that I can make a passable cake and soup. I'm not mentioning the other things, but I'm still working on them! I am going to wear one of new "tent tops" from Matalan that I managed to buy on my outing the other week.

Actually, it's a man's top – more roomy, great coverer of spare tyres or, in my case a complete tyre depot – and a new pair of trousers, the first for many many months! Laura says the waist is so unfashionably high that I will have to pin them to my bra to keep them up! Cheek, anything that has the courage to cover my stomach has my vote any day!

Thursday 22nd January

Another thing I suddenly realised today as I was wandering around the garden trying to get some fresh air – my nose just will not stop running! I have these uncontrollable "dewdrops" that appear from nowhere and before you can say "quick, I need a tissue" have become an embarrassing problem!

As a child I would watch my father working in the garden, doing some DIY project, usually in the cold and wait with morbid fascination as I watched the dewdrop form on his nose (which was exactly the same shape and size as mine, the nose that is, not the dewdrop!).

I can remember waiting for it to drop on whatever lay underneath and then, just at the moment you thought it would go, Dad would sniff and wondrously the dewdrop would disappear.

This would go on in a controlled way until Dad's hands were free enough to find the much-needed hanky and kept me amused for many an hour. However, mine is in no way controllable, no, it just appears and then...well, it's not polite, is it?

I decided to "look" into the situation and the mirror revealed a startlingly discovery – I have no hairs up my nose! Not one. It's obvious isn't it, there's nothing to stop the descent, no safety net and unhindered by nature's normally present "catch net" it has the freedom to escape!

It's that chemo. Hairless head, hairless nose, hardly any eyebrows and very thin eyelashes, no armpit hair (hooray!) but still leg hairs (why?). Some things should remain private but this is a no-holds-barred blog so the "privates" are a bit like my head – oh, the embarrassment! There, now you know everything.

Part 49 next week

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