Last February I gave you my lump but the very next day you gave me a hole
Anniversaries are like a letter on your door step. There's a past where it might be a letter from a loved one or a postcard with a twee seaside image. But now you're in the present and each anniversary is a bill from the DLVA, a hospital appointment or cat food from amazon that the courier for some reason put in the bin.
R&R (Rum & Roast Turkey)
At the end of November I got to go on my first ever all inclusive resort holiday. I am a YHA girly. I normally travel with packet ramen and a portable coffee maker. All inclusive simultaneously delighted and terrified me. What do you mean I get free rum and I don't need to bring my own padlock??
There is no answer
Who would have thought three hours driving and an afternoon off would get in the way of going to a support group? Well, anyone. Including me. Maggies in Nottingham is a wonderful place but when your only cancer support network (outside of amazing friends and family) is based in another city it's not exactly convenient. Wednesday was the sarcoma support group. I've only been able to go to one meeting so far and I found it really valuable but is it "losing half a day's holiday" valuable? Sometimes.
One Year Since A Cancer Diagnosis
November was anxiety, confused and a dense mass inside of me both literal and metaphorical. Every time I told someone I was exhausted by it all. So I didn't, I delegated and I delayed.
My hole is not the daily news
There's something of a routine with being ill. Knowing that there was an end goal meant I could take comfort in the regular GP and hospital visits. The slow and steady progress and the daily little things. Now I'm out of that (only my cheeky three monthly xrays now) it's almost strange. I feel somewhat lost.
Sarcome together, right now, over tea
Last week was the first Sarcoma Support Group at Maggie's in Nottingham. I'd had my three-monthly clinic an hour or so before ("X-ray's fine. You good? Cool, see you in three months" - love a boring doctor's appointment) so I was on my third volunteer-brewed cuppa by the time we all met in the Big Room.
All roads lead to dumplings
Relaxation is a strange thing. I find sometimes it can be quite unknowable. Yes, I can get a good night's sleep but trying to manufacture a situation where I'm truly recuperating seems like more of a challenge than it should be.
Couch Recovery
Fitness is something I keep coming back to again and again since my wet healing ended. That's the phase where I had a goopy lil hole in my back and I was in a gentle cloud of morphine that a 19th century writer would have called a Tuesday. Now I'm in the dry healing phase where my hole is only goopy when I slather it up with some Aveeno. Sorry, my writing is just going to be like this sometimes. Why do you think my housemate has a mad look in her eyes most of the time? She's had to deal with this nonsense in person for seven months.
Maybe normality will come after harvest
I'm trying to figure out how to be normal again. I feel like I came out of Covid a bit weirder than I went in. Less socially sure but more confident in myself. Now I've come out of another fog and I feel like I almost don't know who I was in December starting radiotherapy, who I was in March curled up in bed with a vacuum attached to my back or who I am now, bumbling through a strange and difficult harvest.
Let's do physio, physio. I wanna get physio. Let's go get some physio. Let me hear your body talk —ow— your body talk.
I'm pretty good at going with the flow at this point. I gotta get my muff out for radiotherapy? I don't know how I could have predicted this. Oh I gotta get my tits out now for an ECG? I get why you assumed I knew this but I only got my first blood test in my life an hour ago. Oh you gotta prod my crotch to check my lymph nodes? I should have asked more questions before now.
Why do I relax with aviation disasters?
Nothing more relaxing than a train crash.
Lump
Originally written in February 2025 I needed a way to both process everything for myself and let my wider circle in.