Hold your head up, hold your head high

Day 25:

General status update 

Hair: V. happy snoozing safely in its snood

 

Nausea demon:  Fighting back hard and making himself felt – FEC2 making him even stronger. Have to be very vigilant about taking meds exactly on time, or he might make a really spectacular break-through. 

Chemo Muse: Taking over again, babbling away happily – I am being forced to carry a notebook with me everywhere, including the bathroom. 

Paranoia Demon: Limbering up, getting ready for action, and forming a close link with his room-mate, Anxiety. 

Chemo Brian: Absolutely no trouble – he just sits on the sofa all day, smiling to himself, smoking, eating cake, and occasionally patting the cushion next to him and inviting me to sit down with him and chill. He does smoke rather a lot, but they seem to be some kind of herbal cigarettes – quite fragrant, in fact. 

Mouth: Brush teeth 5 times a day with a child’s toothbrush – check; swill out mouth twice a day with unspeakably foul-tasting mouthwash – check; avoid eating anything hard, rough-textured, chewy, spicy or otherwise strong tasting – check. Dreary to read about, isn’t it? It’s even drearier to do.

Sleep, lack of: Completely knocked out by the massive drug combo last night and slept like a log, even without Lorazepam. Small mercies, eh? 

Anxiety level (1-10): Much less anxious about Hair now it is dozing contentedly, warm and safe in its great big purple snood. Feels as if the chemo can’t get at it there, which is nonsense, of course, but for the moment it’s one less thing to worry about. 

State of mind: Bloody, but unbowed. It’s all horrible, but now it’s 2 FEC down, and only 4 to go.

  

Been feeling a little below par post-FEC2 yesterday, so haven’t got much energy for writing, but here are today's two snood-related occurrences.

This afternoon I ventured out for the first time all snooded up, and went to the M&S just down the road, to stock up on a few fresh, health-giving, anti-cancerous foods:

sprouted bean salads, pineapple, mango and the like (n.b. beetroot and apple juice, although astonishingly good for you, is Just Too Beetrooty for me - not recommended).  And - in the spirit of full disclosure - some iced fruit buns, of the kind we had at my grandmother’s house in Scarborough. What the hell: life is definitely too short never to have a nice iced fruit bun. R agrees, being something of a retro baked goods man, himself.

The woman operating the checkout looked at my headwear with some interest, smiled and asked ‘Have you been to Mecca?’ 

I hesitated, and then replied as cheerily as I could ‘Well, no, actually, I’m a cancer patient. They put all this goo on your head to try and stop it falling out after the chemotherapy, so I have to go out with my head covered for a few days.’

 

 Too much information, obvs. 

The poor woman was MORTIFIED, her whole face crumpled up and she kept apologising, and was clearly wishing that the ground would open and swallow her up. I tried to reassure her that I didn’t mind a bit, but I think it pretty much ruined her day.

Then I crept off wondering if the particular style of head-dress I have adopted (which is not unlike the ones worn by the Turkish nomadic tribeswomen who come down from the hills into Ayvalik on market day) is perhaps also worn by people who have been on the Haj, and it’s like a sign, or something. I’ll have to google it – I do hope not. 

When I got home, I found that R had arrived just before me with his little son K, who is six. 

K looked at me, puzzled: ‘Why are you wearing that on your head, Caroline?’

‘Because the medicine they gave me at the hospital yesterday makes my hair poorly, so I need to keep it wrapped up for a couple of days. It keeps it nice and safe and warm.’

‘I want to wear one. Can I wear one?’ 

So we got the other as yet unworn snood out of the cupboard, wrapped it round K’s head, and secured it with a headband. Then we went and looked at ourselves in the mirror together. K was delighted with it, and kept it on for the rest of the afternoon.

You lose some, you win some…