I'm off first base and running like a mad woman..........

Challenges are what make life interesting; overcoming them is what makes life meaningful...........

Today I overcame a challenge - possibly one of the scariest events of my life to date.  Mostly due to the fear of the unknown and my own expectations of what 'might' happen.  It's not like you actually have to 'do' anything - in fact it is so insanely sedate and stationary that I had to keep checking my pulse to make sure I wasn't in fact already dead!  Arrived mid morning and was whisked into a cushy reclining chair like the ones my grandparents had that were reserved just for them in the prime spot in their well worn loungeroom in front of the telly.  You could sneak into them when they weren't there and move that lever as fast as you could crank it to push the foot stool thing out and back in but when the night time shows were on - you had no chance of getting into one.  Reserved for the elderly or much worse an older sibling.  Besides, I always struggled to push my body weight hard enough to make the back recline anyway.
But not these chairs - they had remotes and buttons and they tip beautifully.  And tip I did.  Under a warm blanket in a cold room surrounded by sympathetic looks and smiley but somewhat sad faces and bald heads.  I met John next to me who has a much more severe cancer story to tell but who still laughed and shared his amazing health dilemma and agreed he and I would share a Christmas drink at the next chemo date.  He asked me if I drink red or white - John for you, if you promise you will be there, I will drink anything.  Just be there.

I learnt a life lesson today - now you dont get to do that every day do you?  Well maybe we should.  But I realised today that I have neglected to spend enough one on one time with new people who turn up to come and do my gym classes.  Because the gym is a comfortable and familiar world for me, I have forgotten that this is not the case for so many people who brace themselves to walk into a room of mostly super fit people and I need to make more of an effort to welcome these brave people into my class.  Because today I entered a world that was very much unfamiliar to me and I felt deeply vulnerable.  And while the Oncology unit was lovely, it was extremely busy and for the first little while I stood watching the activity whirl around me while I shuffled from one foot to the next wondering how the hell was I every going to fit in.  Life lesson.  This is a daunting and scary place to find oneself and it can happen in every environment you encounter if it's not an environment you have ever visited.  Important to make people feel immediately welcome and safe to be there. 

So after a short while, I was superbly briefed by Garth and his team of staffies in the lead up to the insertion of the cannula.  And beside me on either side was Johnny and Julia and for a brief time little Kez who had left me flowers and trashy mags so that when I first arrived I had a colourful chair allocation and some good quality reading!  Thanks Kez - I know how busy you are.  And to the J&J team - I couldn't have done it without you - even if it does leave a questionable game of ipad scrabble hanging in which I was leading for almost the entire game (with a sizeable score) but seems to have mysteriously moved to loser in the last play of the game at which time I was being fussed over and largely distracted.  I declare a replay.  But seriously, I am forever grateful and have so much admiration for you both hanging out in a small space inside a hospital ward for almost 7 hours and never once showing signs of wishing you were somewhere else. 

And in that time, I was pumped with a cocktail of poison that is right now working hard in my body to kill every cell - both healthy and sinister from head to foot and it wont discriminate.  The whole lot has to go.  My immune system must be really wondering what the hell is going on?  I have spent a big part of my life trying to be good to my body and today I willingly reversed that work.  It is part of the surreal world in which I am currently living.  Even today as they were hooking me up I wondered if I might not wake up and discover this whole cancer diagnosis was just some very long and awful dream.  Even when Garth talked to me about my 'disease' I felt in internal cringe.  Disease - its such a hideous term and one that I dont associate with me.  Oh, I did also decide to chuck a quick allergic reaction to the anti nausea drugs they pumped into me which meant having to cease the chemo temporarily and have a bunch of people run around like crazed medico's - STAT!  Well, ok it wasn't that dramatic but I could have done without it and the delay that it caused.  It basically meant I missed my 5:15pm spin class - and so thanks to Jac for saving the day there.  But worse it means I haven't as many anti nausea drug options available to me to support the next few months.  Drats to that!

On the advice of a number of lovely people, I worked on a visualisation as I sat in that reclining chair and watched the drugs being pumped into my body.  I see my cancer as a large glass that has been accidently smashed on the wooden floor.  That's the cancer and as with a smashed glass, you immediately pick up all the big bits you can see as you search the floor.  That's the surgery.  Remove all you can and like cancer you hope that you have been completely successful in picking it all up, wrapping it in paper and disposing of it safely. But there is always a chance that there is a tiny shard of glass that has bounced from the location of the drop to land in some inconspicuous corner of your kitchen (or in my experience and because I do things less than gently) across into the loungeroom and under the coffee table.  And so you have to get the vaccuum and the mop and cover the whole floor twice to ensure that sometime down the track, you aren't walking barefoot and end up with glass lodged in your toe.  And that's what chemo is for me.  It's my mopping up. Just to be extra sure.  And so I visualised the chemo weaving all the way through my body into every part of my anatomy from my breast to my brain to my fingertips - doing a damn fine mop up job.  And even as I type this I am conscious that it is working hard and will continue to do so while I sleep and when I wake up tomorrow....and the next day.  Sure, it also means my good bits cop it along the way and for a while, I'm not going to look or feel quite like myself.  But Julia read me a quote tonight that said "take care of your body, it's the only place you have to live".  And today I took care of my body in the best way I can right now.  And I know it will mean that there's a whole lot of living still left in me.

Sweet dreams.  K x