The Bone Factory

Day Five was beyond ghastly.

I woke early again, but not so much to the music of Ferdinand doing the idgy squidgy hula in the depths. (Though he was.) Not so much to the abrasive misery of a mouth like the Sahara and teeth that felt twice their normal size in the sockets. (Though all that was there.)

No, this time I woke to the song of every bone in my skeleton screeching in agony. The Bone Factory had started up the conveyor belts, churning out extra white cells in response to the Neulasta injection I'd given myself on Day Two. The physical effect of this had been described to me as 'like a bad case of the flu'- aching limbs, general lethargy and so on.

For me, it was nothing like the flu. It was like being stranded in someone else's body with a hefty dose of locked-in syndrome, and a barrel full of wildcats armed with poisoned syringes cavorting in my bones. I had rheumatic fever as a child, and suffered pains approaching these every time I became ill all through my childhood; perhaps this particular variety of hell has become the torture-too-far for me. 

Or perhaps it's just that I expected more of myself, that I'd endure it better. Whatever. But let's just say that I Wasn't Handling It.

I tried. Believe me, I did. I dragged myself out of bed somehow, and immediately realised that I could hardly stand up straight, let alone balance on a pushbike. But I'm a stubborn bitch. I dressed anyway, and took Velcro-dog out on the lead with me for a walk instead.

I. Will Not. 

Let.

The Freeloader.

Beat.

Me.

I think I probably looked drunk. I know I was swaying all over the road. After a while I took Velcro off the lead, because I thought I might fall over him. Things were a bit blurry out there.

A lot blurry.

Maybe more exertion will help, I thought, and started doing my shoulder exercises as I walked along. Counting to 20. Trying to stay on my feet.

By the time I turned for home, my legs were jelly and my eyes weren't working properly any more. The whole world had turned into an array of bright-lit crystals. I was tripping, in more ways than one.

Home again, I crashed back into bed like a stone. 

Felt like I was dying. 

Not fast enough.

******************

I lay there most of the day, barely lifting a limb. I tried opening the internet to distract myself, found it full of the massacre of children and my colleagues' uncomprehending pain. 

Felt the insignificance of my own fight. How little this matters, really. I am nothing in the whole scheme of things. My pain means nothing.

This is how the Freeloader gets under my skin. Any chance will do.

Give up, he wheedles. Give up.

I closed the computer.

******************

Picked up a book. Couldn't be bothered following the plot. Threw it down again. On the floor.

Put on a DVD. Picked holes in the script. Turned it off, frowning.

Irritable. That's right. Another side effect of chemo. Irritable. Thanks for that, Freeloader.

I nibbled at the left-overs of a cold, mild curry. Rice. I want rice, murmured Ferdinand, lurching sideways.

The day stretched out, stinking hot and airless. I turned the fan to full blast and barely felt it.

This mightn't even work. It might all be for nothing.

******************

There is, really, no other choice than to cope. What's left, if there is no coping? There's nowhere to fall. The pain just is. 

There's madness, I guess.

About 2pm, it occurred to me that I could try taking some Panadol. That had seemed like a stupid idea earlier. Panadol for bone pain? Nah. Like trying to kill an elephant with a push-pin.

I took some anyway, and it helped- a little. Enough to stop me descending to tears. Note to self: medicate. Even if you think it's stupid, or useless, medicate. You need all the help you can get.

I see that I need reminders about small, common-sense things. I can no longer rely on my brain to tell me that pain = need for pain relief, pure and simple. Taking deep breaths now and then during the day, I realised at once that this simple act also relieves the pain a little, yet forgot immediately to keep doing it. 

I slept a little. Woke feeling like my scar was no longer part of me, and alive with fire ants again.

*******************

My morning routine had been blunderbussed by the pain and lethargy. Somewhere at the back of my mind, the thought stirred that cool water might feel pleasant. It took me till 4.30pm to drag myself to the shower, where I stood for too long, letting precious water run through my hair and down my back, not caring about the waste.

Lymph.

I dropped onto the outdoor couch with my lotion, still wet. Did my massage sitting down. Ineffectively, probably. I tried.

It took the fire ants away.

5pm, and I'm ready for the day.

****************

A sudden outburst of chaos at the turkey compound. The dingo pup had returned, and I discovered once more exactly what I could do when I had to. Burst out the front door, set Velcro to chasing him off, went out and looked for casualties. 

Found the Bear way down the back of the property. Walked back with him, feeling like I was levitating, held to earth only by his strong hand on my arm.

Got him to put down the poor destroyed baby with the broken wing.

A little self-belief returned then. I pulled out the chopping board, convinced I could at least prepare some vegies for dinner. Whether I could cook or eat them was a matter for later on.

Realised my legs were not cooperating. Again.

This is not me. I never sit down to cook.

I sat down, and chopped at the table. You need to bend. Listen to your body. 

The Bear came in and we nearly rowed about how to cut and cook the meat, till I remembered: side effect. Irritable. 

Shut up, Candy. He's exhausted. He's doing his best. It's YOU.

Somehow between us, we got a meal on the table without coming to tears or blows. Somehow I managed to eat a little, though the meat no longer appealed. 

The sun went down, and my body felt cool and smooth from the late shower.

Day Five. Over.

**********************

Today I got up and rode to Eagle Bend again, with more relief than triumph.

Ferdinand the Fish

They reckon the first four days are the worst. After chemo, I mean. If that's true, I'm doing okay. I've hit day four, and so far I'm doing fine.

(She said, chewing on another dry rice cracker.)

Mind you, another message I keep getting is that everyone's different. You can't predict how any one body will respond to being poisoned. So maybe I will regret those words by this afternoon.

Or tonight.

Or next week, when my blood count drops to 'buggered', or next cycle when I have to go through it all again.

But so far, so good.

*****************

My habit of personifying my tormentors continues. The dead weight that appeared at the bottom of my stomach on the second morning had been aptly christened by 3.30am on the fourth, when it woke me complaining yet again of Unfair Neglect.

Ferdinand the Fermenting Fish sinks sickeningly to the bottom if I let my stomach empty completely. As you do, during the night. There he lies, nauseating, slimy and heavy, and starts to let off bubbles of rancid fumes which rise lethargically into my windpipe.

Bleaugh.

I have to keep refloating him, coating him. Coaxing him to behave with little morsels. Too much water at once, and he turns over and threatens to burst upwards; too little, and he's hard to dislodge from the drain.

He's not part of me. He doesn't seem to like ginger, which has always rescued me from dodgy tummies before. He likes blueberries, which have never really appealed till now. He's a stranger, another invader in my being.

I am not a weak-bellied person. But Ferdinand is trying his damnedest to make me so.

Watermelon, cubed and stored in the freezer, helps for a while. Seaweed rice crackers he consumes avidly. Yoghurt gives him a nice slippery slidey surface, as do those little pots of Chinese fruit jelly you can pop in children's lunchboxes- guava, lychee, kiwi fruit, mango. Honeydew, even.

Not too much at a time. Just enough to float him again. It's a balancing act, constantly. Even at 3.30 am.

Damn you, fishy. Let me sleep. I'm running low on red cells here.

***************

The very lethargy of Ferdinand should have warned me what to expect from the rest of my digestive tract. Rather than the largesse shooting through in any and all directions as though from your average Bondi tram after Mardi Gras, everything's grinding to a halt. Let's just say I selected the Sultana Bran at breakfast, after discovering how cold you can get sitting in the bathroom for half an hour at 4am.

I warmed myself up afterwards by treating myself to an early bicarb soda mouthwash. Yum, yum. On day two I'd made the mistake of flossing before my salty-tasting treat, and the agony was unbelievable. My teeth and gums ached for an hour. Come to that, they're still tender; when I look into my crystal ball I see a future of mince and soup.

Yum, yum.

So many little schedules to dove-tail, eating up the day in tiny bites and screwing you over if you get it wrong. Dental hygiene, to prevent decay and infection: check. Bicarb-wash care of delicate, dying-cell chemo mouth: check.

Done at the same trip to the sink, to save time: shriek.

****************

By the time I got back to bed, of course, I'd woken the Bear. We'd not been lying there long, holding hands and listening to the dawn symphony, when the first movement of Carol of the Bungy Birds also descended to piercing shrieks. He shot out of bed to find a dingo pup investigating the turkeys, and the remains of yet another hen out the front. Just as cancer has no respect for daily life, daily life has no respect for cancer. Together, they're wearing down my man as much as Ferdinand is leaning on me.

I started getting concerned about the Bear again yesterday morning, when the eyes went dark. He had all the signs of needing to download, yet the breast care nurse- the lovely Monica, who somehow managed to elicit his trust and most of his story in a single visit last time round- had been and gone without him offering up a single crumb of what was troubling him. I couldn't even draw him to the table with us.

By nightfall, when he'd been to one end of our 45 km road for fuel and the other end for turkey scraps (with a little bull-rustling and fence-fixing stirred in the middle), he'd started to crack. He's simply trying to do everything alone, and it's not humanly possible. At home, the fallen tree that nearly killed him is still lying across the gate and blocking access to the back. The Parramatta grass is taking over the lawn now the heat's here, choking us both with its flamboyant allergens. Chicks keep hatching and needing new, dry beds. The lawn needs a mow. The dishes pile up, or they would have done if he hadn't spent the whole time Monica was here washing them, his back turned to our tentatively hopeful conversation.

I am doing well, she thinks. Looking good. Coping well. I think so too. As long as you only think in the context of fighting the Freeloader.

As for real life, I do what I can. We've cooked together each night, the Bear keeping a sharp eye on me lest the smells floor me before I have a chance to eat. Last night I girded my loins, or rather my nose, and did it alone before he got back from the far end of the road. I can pretty much cook in my sleep, which is just as well. Fed the dogs, too. Put the turkeys away.

But it was a struggle to move my limbs at all by that time of night.

One day at a time.

********************

'Doing what I can,' today, did not include attending my son's PhD graduation. I'd chided him for not even telling me about his Bachelor's or Honours ceremonies during the last many years of study, but his eyes were fixed further ahead from the start.

"Meh, wait for the big one, Mum. That's the only one that matters," he'd responded, with his usual casual irreverence for occasion.

Well, the big one came and went this morning, while I sat at the table trying to work out whether I had enough spoons left after my bike ride, exercises, shower and lymph massage to wash up before I went back to bed for a nap.

I didn't. To even think of travelling to Sydney for today would have been insane.

Thanks for that, Freeloader. I owe you one. You just try to keep me in bed when it's time for my ride tomorrow. And the next day, and the next, and the next.

***************

And so now I'm sitting up in bed at half past two in the afternoon, wishing I could be out on the ride-on fixing the lawn but simply lacking in the spoons to do it. The Bear's out in the burning sun with no shirt on (you can't tell him), chasing the shade with the poison spray, killing every clump of noxious weed he can find. Velcro-dog's lying on the bed with me, pushing every other living creature away with his nose or his substantial arse if they get to close to His Mummy. Snapping at March flies if they dare try to bite me.

The satay noodles Ferdinand asked for at lunch are swirling dangerously, like seaweed in the depths. No spicy food, said the book. Satay noodles, said Ferdinand.

Listen to your body.

Eugh.

I feel useless.

Day four. I'm doing well. I'm doing well.

Getting back on the bike

I woke up on the First Day of Chemo (note seasonal theme) determined to be proactive.

Regular exercise will play an important part in your statistical chances of survival, say the sages. Good then.

I know it in my head. I've done my homework. Right now, it will help reduce oedema. (God knows I have enough of a challenge already when it comes to puffy arm syndrome, given that I'm minus the left-hand lymph glands.)

It will help fight off depression. (And I've had problems with depression for most of my life.)

It will help prevent weight gain. (Don't mention my Polynesian ancestry.)

It will help sustain my mental acuity. (See 'Candy's greatest fears about chemo'.)

And so on. It's a no-brainer. Pardon the pun.

Only one small issue to deal with: I just love organised exercise. I love it the way fish love riding bicycles. I love it the way I love jamming a splinter under my thumbnail. Hey, I was the one who selected three languages as electives at high school, because it meant I would miss PE- which, under the eagle eye of the aptly named Miss Butcher, meant forty minutes or so of standing in lines and being yelled at if you weren't able to climb a knotted rope when the whistle blew. YOU get knotted, I'd say, as I fell off again.

Under my breath, of course. To say such things aloud meant instant detention beyond school hours, when I had far more important and creative fish to fry. Piano practice. Poetry writing. Crafts. Examining and drawing the petal structure of wildflowers, or painting my favourite composers' faces on my bedroom walls.

So as you see, I've had to come late to moderate exertion. But now that I live on a dead quiet, level country road, the obvious choice for effective, low-impact aerobic exercise is cycling.

Cycling. Oh my dear lord. I am a fish, remember? Or at least partly. Moon in Pisces is enough. Fine motor skills? Superb. Gross motor skills? Um... pass.

******************

My first attempt to ride a bicycle was at about 10 years of age, when my best friend put me on her bike without explanation and gave me a push down the dead-end road. When I say 'dead-end', perhaps I should explain that it 'ended' in a steep drop into Kuring-gai National Park.

That friend's a teacher these days, and a good one. I'm sure she's learned to show her students where the brakes are by now. Me? I have no idea how I avoided going over the edge, but it ended in equal proportions of gravel rash and indignity.

Amazingly, I didn't break anything (not even the bike), but it kept me away from those danged two-wheeled contraptions until ten years later, when I was going out with Mark- a champion water-skier and lifelong physical activity disciple.

He took me to Rottnest Island, didn't he? I loved everything about it except the transport arrangements- it was ride a bike, or walk and see about a quarter of the attractions before the boat left for home. Fortunately Mark proved a good teacher, full of faith in me, and I did well- right up till the moment we crossed a narrow causeway in single file, and self-fulfilling prophecy took over. Fear of going off the edge sent me off the edge.

(There's a lesson there.)

That error of judgment sent me down a drop that seemed like three metres, but was probably only one. Pity about the large, jagged rocks all the way down to the bottom. This time I hurt both the bike and myself; I was black and blue for weeks, and poor Mark was wracked by guilty pains too.

Quite unnecessary, of course; I am an expert at looking confident when I'm not, and at going on when I should stop. We got over it. He's still a supportive friend today, god love him.

My ex-husband had a go at teaching me, too. That ended in tears with me banging into a rather exclusive parked car in a rather exclusive street of a rather exclusive North Shore suburb. (Not a good look; fortunately the damage was mostly to my ego and my then-husband's faith in me.) But this time we persisted, keeping to parklands rather than streets, and I kind of got the hang of it.

Cycling rule 1: If in doubt, pedal harder or stop. That's the only decision to make.

Jools provided, yet again, the kick in the arse I needed to get me back on the bike once I moved up here. Her own health issues mean that cycling has become a passion for her, and she managed to transmit a little of the joy to me. We acquired two bikes so we could go up and down the road together when she came to stay, and she taught me a few more rules.

Cycling rule 2: Keep the wheel straight when you're starting, or going through gravel.

So I've only had one tumble since then. Unfortunately, it cost me over $400, given that I had my almost-new laptop in my bag at the time (don't ask- I offer you only two words: 'overconfidence' and 'idiocy'). I shall not relay the curses that emanated from my sweet lips when I opened it up in dread and discovered that I'd shattered the screen.

So getting back on the bike now, alone, for the first time since my diagnosis required something of an act of faith. (And a bit of support from the Bear, who managed to get the bike working smoothly again after some months of neglect.) But this is war. No half measures. I was going to get my blood moving around my body before the poison went in and made me sluggish and gluey inside.

It was The Best Thing I could have done for myself. I, the Hater of Exertion, say that without hesitation. I pushed myself just hard enough to get to Eagle Bend, but not so hard that I made my lymphy arm any worse. A few fearful restrictions are probably just what I need to stop me overdoing it, because while I'm not a particularly competitive person against others, I'm a ratbag when it comes to competing against myself.

Now it's a matter of balancing the fears. Fear of lymphoedema, vs fear of losing my mind. Or my life.

Yep, it works for me. I am determined to live.

******************

A romantic diversion, for those who'd like it amongst all this talk of death, poison and (worst of all) sweat.

Eagle Bend. As one of my blog readers pointed out, it's such an evocative name. Yet it describes a rather ordinary-looking right-angle bend in the middle of our long, long road.

That's not its Official Title, you see. Nobody calls it that except me, the Bear, Jools. Eagles are part of the Bear's personal mythology, and so have become part of mine. Along with his dogs, eagles helped save his sanity when he lost his last beloved to breast cancer.

And when we first came up here, eight years later, an eagle appeared in front of the car as we drove towards our home, soaring low and smooth through the archway of forest and then rising to come to rest on a branch of a dead tree at that sharp but nondescript bend.

It seemed like a sign. Leading us to safety, perhaps, from the terrible times that had troubled us so deeply.

Eagle Bend it is, no matter what the maps tell you.

********************

Back from my ride, I got myself through the morning routine and tried to make myself look less like a beast bound for the slaughterhouse. Feel like a victim, become a victim. But I'd rejected the Lyrica the night before, fearful that it might conflict with the poisons about to be pumped through me, and had had less than two hours' sleep. I looked like shit.

Gotta love mineral powder foundation. But taking the terror out of my eyes was a little harder than removing the dark circles.

********************

We parked in a space clearly labelled RESERVED. Like we cared. I Have Cancer. There was nowhere else, and I wasn't leaving the Bear stranded looking for non-existent parking after dropping me off; he was having enough coping issues already. If I was a rabbit in the headlights, he was a sweet puppy in pain. What a pair.

We pulled it together by the time we got upstairs to the St Vinnie's chemo suite. Front-of-house Donna, who'd already introduced herself on the phone, greeted me warmly at the door- but without the cloying over-familiarity of the Sultana of Turbana. (It's a fine line; well-walked, Donna.)

The explanation of what was about to happen was brilliant, complete with hand-drawn illustrations, and made a mockery of anything I'd been given before (thank you Margaret). The icing on the cake was being asked if I minded the student nurse watching my procedures.

"Of course not. I've been a teacher of one sort or another for over 30 years," I replied.

Margaret's surprise seemed genuine. "Thirty years? You don't look old enough to have thirty years' experience."

"I'm 56. How old did you think I was?"

"Oh, late thirties, early forties..."

God, I love my mineral powder. And my Polynesian skin, even if it did come with Extra Hip-lard and F-cups.

****************

There Was Paperwork. Pre-emptive anti-nausea medication. And more paperwork.

More explanations. More paperwork.

More waiting, while the anti-nausea meds took hold.

Despite the local anaesthetic swabs, there was a painful jab into my Port-a-cath, the fixed line almost straight to my heart that Dr Goodguy put in so expertly during the mastectomy operation. I know he put it in expertly, because later on the Doxorubicin (which has similar properties to battery acid when applied to anything but the inside of a vein) didn't turn me into an emergency case due to internal leakage.

Margaret pushed it in with what looked like a horse needle, ever so slowly, waiting for me to scream in pain if it leaked and burned. It didn't. Go you Good Guy.

Before the Doxorubicin, there was saline. (A Lot of saline.) After that, there was Taxotere. And finally, Cyclophosphamide. None of it hurt. None of it made me sick.

In between there was more saline. And more waiting. And Lovely Liz bearing fresh sandwiches and caramel tart and soup and green tea.

Next to me was a woman who'd lost her hair in a week. (I pulled at my own locks this morning, but they were still firmly in place.)

She was replaced by an elderly gentleman whose wife died two weeks ago. (I counted my blessings.)

Some of my fellow-travellers had the Bad Wig thing going on. (I felt better about Truvy and her dead setter.)

It took five hours. I handled it. Look.

I haven't thrown up once. But I was so absolutely stuffed by the time I got home, I managed to organise a complete pill pack for the next three days in a manner worthy of Laurel and Hardy (think flying capsules shooting across the table and having to be retrieved from under the furniture; repeat till pill pack is done).

And then, after all that, I managed to forget to take my late night dose of Dexamethasone.

Pride comes before a fall. I'd cooked and eaten a 50-50 plate of Atlantic salmon and steamed broccoli without flinching; look at me, no nausea at all! I am Chemo-Woman, hear me roar!

And gone straight to bed.

Oops.

Two a.m. Wake-up with desperate need to pee. (All that saline has to go somewhere, you know.)

Still awake at 4am, feeling nauseated for the first time.

Fuck. If this is what it's like with the extra anti-nausea meds they gave me, how will I go without them?

****************

Oh fuck. Did I take the last lot of meds?

(Goes through previous night in mind.)

(Visual Learner can NOT see open cover on late-night pills in memory scanner.)

(Gets out of bed.)

Fuck.

(Takes tablets meant for 10pm at 4.15am.)

(Spends next hour alternately peeing and worrying about when and if to take the morning dose, and how bad she'll feel if she doesn't.)

(Goes to sleep around 5am, determining to call hospital and ask.)

Sorted it.

********************

I am determined to live.

I got up at about 7am, despite the excruciating previous few hours. It took a couple of my spoons. But I was getting on that bike if it killed me. Because not getting on it might kill me, in a less than figurative way.

With each pump of the pedals I think of the poison pushing into tiny blood vessels, picking off the enemy one by one as my father did once at an enemy machine gun post.

Find them. Kill them.

I come home feeling better than when I set out. I Am Fine.

So far.

********************

Postscript

A final word: more about eagles, if you have the appetite and like poetry. I wrote this for the Bear before we were lovers, after he told me how he'd been evicted from their rental house straight after his Narelle had died. He'd ended up living alone, high on a mountainside in somebody's derelict shed, too broke to even retrieve her ashes from the funeral home so he could have closure.

(Breast cancer is a bitch on the finances. Believe me, I know.)

When I showed the poem to him, he cried.

"It's like you were there," he said.

******************

From Harvey’s Shed

Your fugue to the wild crown of Middle Brother
made the hidebound flinch, some fear of madness
filling their empty hearts with vicious stones
to sling at you in flight. Stripped at the last
of all but ruthless freedom, still your being
found a breath of peace in the brutal congruence
of owning only pain. Her dogs surged upwards
to the sky where she must be. Pulled in their wake
or by the monstrous vacuum of her absence,
blindly you found calm. 

                                    From Harvey’s shed
you read the clouds like eulogies, heard lays
of bird to fallen timber, felt the stars
drum your loss upon the taut skin of night,
moved to the cycle of light. Below, the river
shivered with dissent, while blank-faced strangers
tramped the fading gardens that you’d tended.

Above, the eagles went about the business
of survival, plunged unconscious of their beauty
from sky to valley floor, soared side by side,
paired daggers for your heart. From your eyrie
you learned the rules of exile and of grief,
a waning spirit caught in the crushing winter
behind her last migration. The dark rushed in.

Inside, the dogs took over, watched the door,
climbed onto the table, ever scanning
the emptiness for signs, their silent howling
fit company. You took them in your arms.
The days stretched blank upon a vast horizon
live with the pulsing empathy of wings.

* * * * * * * 

In the shivering void of night the hot coals winked
like demons. In the chasms of your waking 
there coiled in wait the spectre of the ferryman 
who stood before the casket, dark suit dangling 
like seaweed in the Styx. Once more he sought of you 
three thousand ducats for a pound of ashes, 
a single dollar more to gild his pocket. 
He laughed as you turned away. Robbed of her shadow, 
all traces of her being, drowned with rage 
against the black machinery of the system, 
you churned the papers over till the fate lines 
all pointed back to earth. 

                                     And so you stall now
and fall to ground amid our scuttling half-lives, 
fluttering weary wings against our windows 
to seek her ransom. Bruised by the glassy world, 
cage bird to the heartless, still you gaze 
as if from those precious heights, your eyes mandalas 
lit by a gentle candle for her peace. 
I see the pale flame flicker and I tremble. 
Let it go now. Ashes are just ashes, 
slipstream of the soul, the choking dustcloud 
hanging in the path behind our wheels. 
Toss them to the wind. She is not there. 
From Harvey’s shed you saw an eagle lunge 
towards the growing light like a dying woman. 

**************

'Twas the night before Chemo...

I've taken my Dexamethasone. I've had my blood test. I've freshened up my nail polish. I've bought the Maxolon, the Imodium, the thermometer, the bicarb soda, the wig, the wig stand, the turbans, the scarves, the fake fringe, the forty thousand varieties of food I'm guessing mightn't offend me in times of pukiness (that's not a word, you say? It is now- don't argue, I Have Cancer), the meal replacement in case none of them works...

...and so ad infinitum.

I've written the list of Things Not To Forget tomorrow. More tablets. Questions to ask. Books to read. iPod. Computer and DVDs. Jacket in case it's frickin' freezing in there.

The only thing left is to reframe the whole thing. Make it look less like "I think I'll go get poisoned and feel like crap for four and a half months", and more like "Let's get this war on the road, baby".

Because it is a war. Like I said to Dr Goodguy, my family doesn't survive cancer diagnoses. I plan to change that. Starting tomorrow.

*******************

My Real Hair Wig arrived today, curled up in its net like a dead puppy. Perhaps a red setter with a bad dye job. Describing it to my son by Gmail chat, I unleashed a barrage of Indian cuisine puns which left us both on the floor by our chairs, merely by mentioning that the streaks resembled tandoori smears. (I exaggerate. A little.)

At least it felt nice to pat. I let it out and started trying to bring it back to life; all the way from Hong Kong flat packed, and you'd be having a bad hair day too.

Meet Truvy and the dead setter.
 I think she's been embalmed,
but she maybe doesn't know it yet.
Let's not disillusion her, hey?
They make a great pair.

It didn't look anything like the one in the picture, of course. There was a disclaimer on the bottom of that page telling me the wig in the picture had been 'trimmed and styled'. Riiiiiiiiight. So I put it on Truvy (yes I know, she doesn't look anything like Dolly Parton in 'Steel Magnolias', but once something names itself in my head, that's it) and set about trimming the fringe and taming the curls, which seemed to be having a severe attack of ADHD- all over the room in no particular order, and awfully hard to bring back to their place and keep there.

The dead setter responded well to a sharp pair of scissors and low heat on the blow drier, especially once I realised that the only way to do this was to face Truvy to the mirror and look at myself and her in the same orientation. I straightened the crown a bit, puffed it up a little by blowing it the wrong way, gave it a good combing, parted it on the right side.

Not bad. Hey, it's exactly the same length as my hair, and it's curly. How much more could I ask for? (For less than $300 delivered?)

By the time the Bear arrived home, I was quite pleased with myself and quickly put it on to show him; I'd tamed it into something that vaguely resembled how I used to look the time I dyed my hair really, really dark brown when I was about thirty.

Sadly this error of judgement was well before I met the Bear. He took one look at me and cracked up laughing.

That wasn't the result I wanted, but on the Night Before Chemo it did well enough. It inspired me to further experiments; a loose pony tail with a few long curls hanging out of a lurid headband in front of my ears, and it was Back to the Sixties time. Joan Baez eat your heart out. Seriously, all I needed was a pair of earrings made out of ping pong balls and a guitar, and I was there.

By this time the Bear was having convulsions on the kitchen floor, and I wasn't much better. He begged me to put the damn thing away before he gave himself a hernia.

So the wig's still a bit of a work in progress, but at least the feel of it on my face doesn't turn me into a gibbering wreck. It will do. I can make something of it, particularly with a bit of creative styling and the odd headband or scarf. That's thing about real hair wigs- you can style them. With the fake ones, what you see is what you get.

(Like, an echidna on your head.)

**************

In between my blood test and my dental appointment today (hurrah! No more dental appointments for six months), I found myself back at Cafe Cappello. The nice thing about having Centrelink come to the party is that I don't have to choose between food that's bad for me and food that's just bad when I'm in town at lunchtime; I can spend the extra bucks without worrying so much that I'm going to regret it later.

They've come to know me there. I told the girl behind the counter it was my Last Supper, and we got chatting; as you do, when you're inspired to be up front about your illness, instead of shoving it in the back drawer and trying to pretend it's not happening. (Believe me, sometimes the temptation is there.)

Mostly, people don't run away once they realise that you're cool with talking about it. Mostly, people are wonderful about it.

So I told her I was, by turns, belligerent and fucking terrified. She totally got that. I told her that tomorrow was about sending in three different divisions of the army; hit 'em hard, hit 'em early, take no prisoners. When I look at it like that, it's easier to think about being poisoned without throwing up prematurely.

I told her that the stuff people say about cancer making you look at the whole world differently- you know that touchy-feely crap almost everyone who's had cancer ends up spouting? Yeah, that. Sunshine and fucking fairy floss everywhere- well actually, I told her, it's true.

I told her how I was walking down the street the other day- the day I blogged about, where I was just sooooo happy to be out by myself- and I was grinning my silly head off. And I was surrounded by all these miserable, frowning sods who'd let their Christmas spirit turn into a fermenting vat of rage, and I just wanted to yell "FFS, I have cancer and I can smile. What the fuck is wrong with you?"

Because they just didn't get it. They just didn't get that wandering around the shops is a privilege. They've never had that choice taken away from them. I see good stuff everywhere, as well as the terrifying stuff. And that's the honest truth.

The girl in the cafe got that, too. She's a champ. She's not scared to talk about stuff that's big, and real. I like that.

*************

Coming home, I kept thinking about the war. And how the Freeloader, for all his bastardry and terror tactics, has actually given me an unexpected gift. See, this blog has been the greatest gift I've been given in a very long time. For a creative person like me to have something as huge and important as this to write about- that is a privilege.

I guess I feel like Picasso did, when he was commissioned to paint Guernica. Anyone can write a bland list of what happened at a terrible time. A historian can write a book about what happened in Guernica, just as a doctor can tell you what happens when you have cancer. But for me to have an opportunity to turn something life-changing, something that affects thousands and thousands of people, into art- to try to go beyond the facts, and let people actually feel what happened, to see the pictures behind the pictures and make connections like they were there- that is the ultimate challenge.

That is a privilege.

***************

So one of the things that keeps me floating is knowing that I have the deep, strong joy ahead of me of shaping the words about the experience, of telling you what it's really like to have chemo.

Or rather, what it was like for me; I don't claim to be representative of everyone. My mother was rendered almost catatonic at times by the nausea. My Bear's partner went into a diabetic coma. Neither of those reactions is typical. Another of life's mysteries is about to be revealed; how will my body react? How will my soul cope? Am I strong enough? Will I be reduced to a puddle of desperation on the floor?

Last chance to see... me looking
like ME. For a while.

Tomorrow, as they send in the navy for the first hour, the ground troops for the second, the air force for the third, I'll be trying to play Generals. I imagine myself calling those bags of poison to attention and shouting "Get in there and take no prisoners. Yes, I know, collateral damage, blah blah blah. I don't care. Take no prisoners. Get in there, do what you have to do, and we'll get you out of here as quickly as we can."

That's when I'm not shitting myself in anticipation. I'll be using all the analogies in the world to help myself through this crap. (And I use the word advisedly.) I'll try to be graceful and strong, but I'll try to be realistic too. I'll try to be a squeaky wheel when I need to.

Remember, Candy: this is a privilege. Few artists can make something worthwhile out of unchallenged joy. We remember Guernica much more readily than we remember Child with Dove.  Joyful art becomes wallpaper; unchallenged joy leaves the artist with nothing of great import to say.

I don't want to leave just wallpaper behind me.

Here we go. Wish me luck. Awooga! Awooga! Diving! Diving!

Communication breakdown

Well, my pre-chemo heart scan today had all the hallmarks of a complete balls-up. A right-royal, rollicking stuff-up. And I wouldn't have missed it for the world.

The punch line rocks.

*****************

If the cancer doesn't get you, the travelling will. It was hard leaving home today. I'd sat bolt upright at half past two in the morning, with my sinuses exploding in pain thanks to hay fever (oh, the joys of the Bungy summer). I was completely convinced it was morning. I was also in agony, and two Panadols took their time helping me out.

Then, of course, I had trouble going back to sleep; that was the Freeloader's cue to turn up and start whispering unpleasant messages in my ear about green-faced, nauseated, bald women with khaki rings around their eyes. And severe sinus pain to go with the nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea and general misery.

Fuck off, Freeloader. 

So I was dead tired. And then when I finally dragged myself out of bed, our next door neighbour turned up; he's home for a flying visit, the first since I was diagnosed. He's a good mate. I really just wanted to hang out and chat.

No, no, no. You Have Cancer. Your life is no longer your own. Get in the shower, do the exercises, do the massage, get dressed.

Spend half an hour panicking, because you have McFlurry brains and can't find the heart scan referral. 

(Oh, there it is. Right where I thought it was. But I didn't see it the first time.)

Get in the bloody car. Off you go.

Back I trudged to visit my old mate Hawkeye, the sandwich-press-blender-thingy in the Radiology Department. I don't even get lost any more in that hospital. It's a strange amalgamation of old building and new extension, with odd disorientating angles and a gazillion doors and staircases in unexpected places. I spent the first few weeks of my journey turning in wrong directions and losing the exit- but two months into my ride on the Cancer Express, I reckon I could find Radiology blindfolded.

It was the same girl behind the desk, the one who wanted to know about giving blood last time because She Has Cancer too. She was as chirpy as ever, despite the black nail polish, thinning hair and wan complexion. She's clearly a little ahead of me, well on the way to the khaki ghoul-eyes.

But she's still standing. Still working, even. Good on you, girl.

On the other side of the door, my sweetie from last time awaited too. We exchanged grins. I realised how much better I feel now than last time I was here. Knowing how sick you are is everything. No more nasty surprises- just deal with it.

Much easier.

So after two injections with a half-hour wait between them, the newly-radioactive me took off the necklaces and the lovely new silk scarf I made yesterday and lay down fully clothed on Hawkeye's loading device, ready to be shot down the tunnel. Or whatever.

Sweetie had been joined by Miss Brusque, who seemed to be pulling rank a little. I was a little surprised that the jewellery was all they wanted off in terms of a strip-tease, but hey, they're the experts. I did what I was asked.

Picture One required eight minutes of lying stock-still on my back. I counted to sixty eight times, aware of the discomfort in my left arm increasing by the second. It doesn't like staying still.

BEEP.

"Now for this next one, we need this arm above your head," said Miss Brusque, grabbing my left arm and attempting to rearrange it.

"WHOA!" I yelped. "I've just had a mastectomy over there."

Hello, please read the notes. People with mastectomies don't generally like having their arm yanked upwards. Thank you.

Eventually we reached a compromise. The blender whirred. The seconds counted down for Picture Two; another eight minutes of increasing discomfort.

Some three minutes into the count, Miss Brusque returned unexpectedly and stopped the machine.

"Are you wearing some sort of chain round your neck?" she accused.

"No," I said. "I took them all off."

"Oh. Excuse me."

She disappeared.

Reappeared.

"Have you had any chest surgery?"

Read my lips. I'll say it slowly.

"I. Have. Had. A. Mastectomy."

"Apart from that," she said impatiently.

Oh right, excuse me for not being psychic.

"No."

"Is there any other metal in your clothing?"

I raised an eyebrow. Hello, you didn't ask me to take my bra off, but it's not underwired. And all bras have hooks.

"Not that I can think of."

Then I remembered: I'd reshaped the tubby teddy with bobby pins, to make it actually look the same shape as a breast before I stuffed it.

"There might be a bobby pin or two," I said guiltily.

"Hrmph. That wouldn't do it."

She huffed off outside again, leaving me wondering if they'd suddenly discovered some new and terrible tumour on my heart.

Huffed in again.

"Can you take off everything from the waist up and put this gown on." It wasn't a question. "We're going to have to start again."

Um, whose fault is that?

The rest of the test proceded to plan. I survived three more eight minute bouts of agony to my arm, got myself dressed, paid a stupid amount of money to the pale girl at the desk and was halfway home before I realised what had happened.

And burst into fits of laughter, rendering me a hazard to oncoming traffic.

*******************

Dolly Parton.

Whistler's Mother.

Gentle reader, I put a rock in my prosthesis.

The wisdom to know the difference

When I was a little girl, my grandmother had thick, shining hair that hung right down her back, all the way to the top of her legs. I remember standing hidden behind the bedroom door, watching fascinated as she gathered it up in her hands, twisted it and wound it round and round, fastening it to her head with a multitude of hairpins until it sat meekly at the nape of her neck in a ladylike bun.

Even when young, my
grandmother wore her
long hair up. There are
no photos of her with
her hair down.

It seems that little old ladies weren't meant to display thick silver tresses down to their bottoms in public, delightful though it seemed to me. How I would have loved to touch it. I was distraught the day I arrived to visit some years later and discovered that, no longer able to reach behind her head to bind it up, she'd had it all clipped off into a bland shingle against her scalp.

Hair has always been magical within my personal mythology. My father used to sit hypnotised as I brushed my own long, thick hair, telling me how his mother always gave her hair one hundred strokes a night to make it shine. Perhaps he stood behind that bedroom door too as a small boy. Certainly it was the only positive thing I ever heard him say about his mother, from whom he'd been estranged for years; long, beautiful hair had the power to transcend his bitterness like nothing else.

Long and curly- that's the way
I feel like ME.

I remember feeling like I'd crossed some dangerous border the day I decided to get mine cut short for the first time. It suited me, mind you; I can't complain about that- though my father did, of course. It was hip and cool, and I wore it shorter for some years on and off, feeling like a rebel against the family tradition.

But I never shaved my head. And I never would. I'm not that much of a rebel. To me, a bald head is like a picture without a frame- unfinished somehow.

And after a while I got tired of the constant tweaking needed to keep my short hair looking tidy. I turned up my nose at the cliched image of the older woman with cropped hair when I came to the Northern Rivers, and over the last five years I've grown it as long as I can with a sort of what the hell, let's give it one last shot sort of daring.

But time's nearly up. Knock knock, chemo calling.

If I could fall on my knees and beg don't take my hair, if it would make any difference, I would. Of all the changes cancer could make to my life, this is the one I'm tripping up on- over and over. Not the breast. Not any more. (Hell, I even took both arms out of my shirt the other night. And it was fine. Scary, but fine.)

No, it's my hair that breaks my heart.

And it's not just about me. I know my long hair has a magical effect on the Bear, too. He's known me with short hair- but oh, how he loves it long.

I have moments of shivers across my spine when I think about the nausea and other horrible side effects of chemo, but I don't cry about it. I wrinkle my nose at the thought of radiotherapy burning my tender skin, but there aren't any tears. I worry about how much weight I might gain on five years of hormone therapy, but there's no weeping about it.

Mention my hair, and I implode.

*****************

But that, of course, is categorised under the heading things I cannot change. Mostly, I have the wisdom to know the difference. I wipe up the pool of Alice-tears (again) instead of letting myself drown in them, and try to turn my energy onto the small things I can do to change the way things are. Or, at least, to make things marginally more palatable.

Like, the bloody exercises. What a triumph yesterday, when my lymph count on my left arm went down instead of up post-surgery. I've been moving that arm relentlessly since the moment I woke up in recovery. I'm damned if I'm letting it seize up. When I was given the physio exercises some three days later, I realised I'd been doing most of them instinctively. I want my shoulder to move, and I don't want to wear an elastic sleeve, and perhaps if I do those damned exercises and massages every single morning without fail, I can make a difference to that.

It's tedious, of course. Sixty circles on each neck gland. (Do you know how many glands there are in your neck?) Sixty circles under my right arm. Sixty sweeps from left to right armpit.  Sixty on the groin. Sixty sweeping down my side. And so on, ad infinitum.

Scar massage. Arm extensions. Neck bends. Rock the cradle.

45 minutes later, I'm still going.

This isn't what my morning's meant to look like.

But the new routine isn't something I can change without dire consequences, so I suck it up. Raise arms to the front. Raise arms to the side. Do the hokey pokey and a-turn about. Don't complain, just do it. Count your blessings.

The physio is a delight; imagine walking inside from a drab, cloudy day into a room full of honey-warm sunshine, and that's what it's like driving through Goonellabah and going in to see Gaby. For once an appointment seems like a luxury, not a trial.

She works out straight away why my arm's been hurting more, not less. Massage the harder lines along the underside, these tight cords that stop you getting that left arm vertical. The lymph has gathered a little there and hardened, and has to be moved away.

Fuck, that hurts.

We spend a lot of time laughing.

"Dr Mumbles isn't usually like that," she offers with a twinkle, when I mention my oncologist's unwillingness to engage with anything but his knee. "He's on a diet. Oh god, don't tell him I told you that."

Hey, everyone knows everyone up here.

She offers me a jellybean on the way out, with a mischievous smile. And that's what it's all about.

***************

Taking myself to my physio session was beyond wonderful. I miss my freedom; I miss being able to get up and go where I want, when I want. People are being truly amazing, and sometimes- a lot of the time- I know I need help; but lord, how I loathe being dependent.

I bought lots of things I needed as I wandered around town afterwards, rejoicing in not being answerable to anyone at all. Two beautiful lengths of silk to make scarves for my head. Soft netting to make prosthesis pockets in my bras. Lunch at Cafe Cappell, where Nessun Dorma was already soaring out the door when I arrived, because I realised I was running out of spoons and needed to eat.

Round two. A new handbag with a soft strap; anything tight or hard on my body is out, even if it's not on my arm. A better quality nail varnish. Bits and bobs to try making a wig, even though I've bought a proper real-hair one; I can't bear the thought of throwing my hair away, or watching it go down the drain. Two new front tyres, before I get pinged for having one that's as bald as- oh, never mind.

"I have breast cancer," I explained to the shop assistant in Priceline as I requested the next thing on my list, an aluminium-free deodorant. A small, nervous older woman, she was. Teddibly anxious to please.

"Why do you need that for cancer?" she asked me then, dropping the fawning act and meeting my eyes.

I explained how the aluminium enters the body to clog the pores; not a great idea in an already-compromised armpit. Her eyes widened.

"Perhaps I'd better get some. I've had breast cancer too."

And suddenly we were having a conversation instead of a transaction.

****************

I got home to find my request for a sickness allowance from Centrelink had been approved. That was a relief. All this Freeloader-driven retail therapy will have to be paid for some day, and I wasn't quite sure where the money would be coming from.

The passage to that allowance was remarkably pain-free, given Centrelink's well-deserved reputation for cutting down forests and driving the poverty-stricken to drink without actually giving any money to the people who really need it. Only one major glitch on this occasion; I'd received yet another letter from them to go with the fourteen or fifteen already in the file (oops, there goes another tree) which informed me that your application had been refused as you have not submitted the requested paperwork.

Given that Jools and I had sat in Centrelink with the appropriate service person, who'd filled in the paperwork for us to make sure it was correct and then submitted it in the office, this seemed unlikely. I'd been forced to make an indignant phone call (read, sit on hold or talking to a computer for an hour) to object, and was finally put through to my case officer after screaming consultant! into the mouthpiece enough times and explaining the situation to the poor frazzled woman on the other end, who'd doubtless been yelled at all day.

The case officer spent some time working up some more objections, after the original one fell down like loose trousers to the lino.

"Your property is very large. That's an asset which will need to be assessed."

"It's rural residential," I explained. "It's all rainforest gullies that flood except for the front five acres, and we don't even have road access to the back of it- you can't use it for anything."

Not to be deterred, he tried again. "You've valued your property at x thousand dollars here, but then you say the house is worth y thousand dollars."

Or something. He was talking Swahili as far as I was concerned. Mention economics to me, and watch my eyes cloud over as I go into a coma.

My irritation crumbled into despair, which is probably the best thing that could have happened.

"I'm not a valuer," I said, my voice crackling with about-to-be-shed tears. "I don't know how to do that stuff. I'm just a woman with cancer."

He shut up then, and started being helpful.

*******************

Today I've hemmed up those lengths of silk and tried tying them round my head in different ways. Some of them looked striking, but none of them looked like me. When I started feeling miserable I walked away from the mirror, because wailing won't make the hair stay in my head.

I started pinning the lace to the little hat base I found that fitted me perfectly, ready to make the base of my home-made wig. I cleaned the chipped varnish off my nails, ready to apply the better stuff. I worked out what shape the material needs to be to keep my tubby teddy in my bra, and where to leave a hole to get it in and out.

I'm just a woman with cancer, sitting here sewing prosthesis pockets into her bras. I'm just a woman who is suddenly less worried about whether her bum looks big in this, and more worried about whether her prosthesis will fly out of her cleavage like a Jack-in-the-box at some inopportune moment. (Is there an opportune moment for flying prostheses? Discuss.)

I'm just a woman trying to make the best of a bad job, working out what I can change and what I can't, trying to have the wisdom to know the difference, failing now and then. Trying not to howl at the moon.

My hair will grow again. My hair will grow again. My hair will grow again.

Keeping it up

I woke up this morning feeling like me again.

What a relief. I was dreading heading off to chemotherapy in the headspace I'd been inhabiting for the last few days. I was having trouble keeping it up- keeping up the dreary exercises, keeping up the positivity, keeping up the level of fight against all the nefarious methods the Freeloader has devised to get me down there on the mat, so he can go for the throat.

Everywhere I looked, there were cancer stories with sad, bad endings. I picked up an autobiography I knew I'd enjoyed before for a re-read, and found two fatal cases of breast cancer in it that had just wafted over my head last time.

This time, of course, they stabbed me in the heart. In the end, whispered the Freeloader, in the end I'll come back and get you. I ALWAYS do.

My Twitter feed had a link to a story about another breast cancer blogger. She'd been targeted by trolls who had severe cases of 'Munchausen's by internet'- women faking cancer for attention, blogging about it because it was easy to keep the lie going online without being sprung. In the end the genuine cancer sufferer shut down the blog, exhausted and disillusioned.

FFS. People do that?

OMG. Does anyone think I'm faking this?

I bet some of them wonder, whispered the Freeloader. The ones who don't know you personally. You seem too 'up'. You seem too positive. Be a bit more... pliable.

(Reaching for the piano wire.)

And the heat... the terrible heat. There's no such thing as climate change, squark the shock jocks and the politicians and the mining magnates, and here in the Bungy it's been between 38 and 41 degrees in the shade consistently for a week, before summer's even got a run-up.

And humid- deathly, drowning, claustrophobic humid.

You'll never make it through chemo, snickers the Freeloader. And wait till the radio starts. You'll already be par-cooked before you come home to this.

I could have dealt with that- with ALL of it- if it wasn't for the pain. I've had persistent nerve-end issues since the mastectomy, and my body's stopped responding to the narcotics; I took one of the heavy duty ones at midnight two nights ago, despite my resolve to kick all the narcotics before chemo, and I was still awake and desperate at half past three. (Awake, spaced off the wall and nauseated, to go with the fire ants pouring out of my armpit.)

My daughter-in-law did what she does best then- kicked me in the arse with her lay-down-misere logic. She knows what chronic pain is like. She takes no prisoners when she speaks her mind.

"Remember," she wrote, "pain killers aren't a sign of weakness, that you've given up, that you can't just harden the fuck up already... they're just a tool to improve function. Surely you've felt the frustration of not having the right tool for the job?... Don't skimp on the drugs because they're 'unnatural'- surely the advice you were given after your first surgery, that inadequate pain management = more likely chronic pain, still applies? I'd really rather you didn't join me at the metaphorical chronic pain table."

What a privilege, to have a DIL like that. Hats off to Laura. She's 100% right. I was told. And whose fault is it if I don't get the right tool, anyway? Squeaky wheel, Candy. Squeaky wheel.

Jools chipped in her expertise too, getting out her MIMS (or whatever the heck online tool doctors use to find the right drug for the job these days) and finding something specific to nerve pain. "You won't forget this name," she said. "Ask for Lyrica."

With people falling over themselves to help me again, I'd run out of excuses to lie around feeling sorry for myself. I rang Dr Rosie, had a good old yarn with her (what a woman!) and got myself on the Good Drugs.

O Lyrica, how I love thee.

(Though I hate thy horrendous price tag.)

My body's response to a drug that works on the neurotransmitters has been miraculous. Within half an hour of taking the first capsule, I started to feel some relief. By bedtime, I was able to- wait for it- get comfortable enough to sleep. I rate the ability to lie down and just go to sleep very high up on my list of 'vital assets stolen by the Freeloader'.

Higher than the missing breast, actually. As Joni Mitchell would say, "Don't it always seem to go, you don't know what you've got till it's gone?" I knew I'd miss my breast, but most of us take sleep for granted.

But my sleep's not gone. I got it back. And I woke up this morning feeling like me again.

Sure, I'm a bit dopey now after taking a second capsule this morning; somehow I ended up fast asleep on the lounge in the middle of the day despite the crazy heat, and I'd have to be drugged off my brain to manage that. So I think I'll cut it back to once a day, at night.  But I'm not going to stop taking them till I'm completely free of pain.

I can keep it up. I can get through the chemo. Without sleep, I'm a goner- with it, I can take on the world.

*****************

Lots of little things are helping me to keep it up, now that I've broken through the pain barrier. Finding the 'up' side of having cancer sounds idiotic, but there is an up side.

I'm surprised- amazed- how many people genuinely care about me. Enough to go out of their way to help me. I never would have guessed that. I don't think I'll ever be quite so much of a cynic again.

Damn, there goes another finger.
And that's a shoddy patch-up job
on the right.

It can show in quite little things. Like, my nail polish- so carefully applied and happily flaunted- is all flaking away. I am No Good at keeping my hands beautiful; those hands are far too busy fixing things, making things, playing the piano, dealing with fiddly little farm problems because I'm the one with small, dextrous fingers. I've never taken care of my nails. Seriously, I was madly cooking dinner the other night and nearly had a fit because I thought my own fingernails were a flock of Christmas beetles that had silently landed in the vegies I was cutting up. THAT is how unused to wearing nail polish I am.

Stop laughing.

So I say a few words to a FB friend who happens to be a beautician, and all of a sudden she's finding time in her busy work day for my needs, researching nails and cancer, and coming up with a flurry of cancer-friendly answers. (Yay, Megan.)

That's just one example of many.

Thanks, Freeloader, for showing me how many good people there are out there who care about me.

I've been indulging myself a little, too. I've always been very careful with my money; it's probably a hangover from my childhood, when money was always tight and we had to make do with what we had. Hey, I only recently realised that the 'treat' jaffles we had some nights were probably the only food left in the house.

Things that I always said 'no' to myself about- well, blow it; now I'm saying 'yes'. The locally-grown, perfectly ripe, horribly expensive apricots in the local supermarket- yes, I'm having those. (And they were wonderful. I love apricots- she said, scoffing the second-last one.) The stupidly-priced blueberries, the grapes slightly out of season and way out of my usual purchasing league- yes, I can put some of those in the freezer and eat them in lieu of my usual ice cream and sweet ices when it's this hot. (I may not be willing to give up dairy and sugar completely, but hey, I can cut down.)

Thanks for the treats, Freeloader.

How cute is that? It reminds me
of my grandfather's gold watch
on a chain... only much cheaper.

And a bit of online retail therapy is fun; no guilt attached to buying things that I just have to have, because I Have Cancer.

A watch on a chain round my neck, because I can't have anything tight around my left wrist. A pretty medical alert bracelet, because the writing's rubbing off the one they gave me in hospital- it's just a band of plastic, and it's dying of old age now. A new book to read while I'm being poisoned; some up-market, elbow-high gardening gloves to protect my lymphoedema-prone arm; a foam head for my wig.

Thanks, Freeloader. We'll discuss the bill later. Hell, what's a credit card limit for?

And then there are the big things the Freeloader has done for me. My relationship with my Bear has taken on a depth I never really knew was there. Seriously, I knew he loved me, but I didn't really know how much till he thought he might lose me. We've both had our near-death experiences- me while waiting to find the boundaries of the Freeloader's invasion front, him in dodging a falling tree by seconds- and we're clutching our second chances to our hearts and hanging on like crazy. We tumble into strangely deep and meaningful conversations at the drop of a hat, my man's man and I, just because we're both so aware of how lucky we are to be together right now.

That's unusual. That's comforting. Thanks for bringing us closer, Freeloader.

So with a wave of a magic prescription, I have escaped the doom and gloom. (Whoops, there goes the last apricot. Sorry, Bear. The Freeloader made me do it.) Somehow I'm finding a way to count my blessings again instead of wailing about my woes. I'm unnerving the Freeloader by staring at him with gratitude now and then, instead of fear.

He just stands there waiting. He knows the chemo's coming closer. He thinks he'll get on top of me then.

No way, mate. I'm keeping my chin up and my fists clenched. You nearly had me for a moment there, but I'm stronger than you think.

I'm going to thank that damned poison as it goes into my veins. I'm going to encourage it to go in hard and clean me right out. If I accept it and welcome it, instead of fearing it and fighting it, that's more energy left to fight the Freeloader, isn't it?

Look out. You're about to be flogged, Freeloader. Dr Goodguy and Dr Mumbles reckon you've probably still got a few outposts floating around in there, but your days are numbered.

How about I give you a kiss on your way out?