Car Park Crooning

Wednesday 19 August 2020

Almost a week on from my last treatment and I'm feeling OK. It was a slightly lesser dose so I was able to recover quicker I think. A couple of days of feeling fizzy with steroids then a bit of a shift back onto paracetamol. It has been a week of grumbly gripy pains around the ovaries and some random twinges around the back but in comparison to before really nothing to complain about. Before I had classed my pain as a 3 (severe) but this time it is a 1 (mild). R E S U L T ! My plumbing is back to normal too phew what a relief! 

I've had a few days of my heart racing as if I have drunk 10 cups of coffee in one go and the breathlessness carries on. After walking upstairs I need time to recover my breath. Walking any slight incline gets me going. (Perhaps its time to move to East Anglia?)

My son bought a lovely sharp knife for the kitchen (all mine are pretty blunt). Unfortunately the knife fell off the work surface and caught his finger on the way down. We had just returned from a walk in the woods at Nantgarw where in my inner mind I had been bemoaning and whingeing to myself about the fact that I was breathless and would I ever feel strong again and how I hated feeling weak and pathetic and wobbly in the legs. So as my son accidentally started spraying blood liberally around the kitchen and shouting “I need a bandage” I shot up stairs to the bathroom two stairs at a time to get said bandage and plasters to try and stem the flow. We then had a quick peek to see how deep it was and decided yes he needed stitches. In no time at all I was driving my car to A&E department the other side of town. Breathlessness and wimpyness vanquished in a second. Isn't the human body amazing! Nothing like a bit of blood to focus the mind.

After an hour or so of waiting in the car at A&E I remembered a friend had suggested that I should carry on singing, it being a healing and restorative way of breathing and relaxing. My last vocal recording session was in the middle of June and I hadn't done anything since then.  I tentatively tried out a few notes. I couldn't remember a single song though (I blame that on chemo brain). After a while I was in full swing playing with bass lines and doo waps and shoo be doo be doos galore. My son needed 3 stitches, luckily no tendons or muscle had been touched.

I wanted to say a big thank you to friends and family and peoples and to all who have responded thoughtfully and heartfully to this blog. It is not an easy read I know. I am now gathering some positive cancer survival stories too.

Here's a few stories of courage and determination and wonder.

A man was given a diagnosis of terminal cancer so he got hold of all the Marx brother films and sat and watched them. He laughed and laughed. At his next check up the cancer had gone. He had laughed it away.

Of a 90 year old lady who has survived 3 cancers and has been totally cancer free for several years.

Of a lady who was diagnosed with sever stage 4 breast cancer and has been totally cancer free for the last 15 years

Of a lady who has danced in defiance around her various cancers for the past 20 years.