If you see me walking down the street, walk on by...

Day 31:  

General status update 

Hair: this is getting boring, isn’t it? No drama – no change. The one thing I still seem to be hanging on to, strangely enough. 

Nausea demon: He took pity on me today, given that it’s not much fun shooting fish in a barrel. A quick look on his internet history whilst he was out jogging reveals that he has been frequenting internet dating sites. This should be interesting.

Chemo Muse: Even she doesn’t like to see a grown woman cry; she patted my shoulder, awkwardly.

Chemo Brian: He held me while I wailed into his capacious chest. 

Fatigue/weakness: Overwhelming, debilitating. I had no idea how lightly I got off during FEC 1.  

Sleep, lack of: n/a 

Anxiety level (1-10): whatever 

Grief: Mourning the Old Caroline, taken away without my consent.  

State of mind: F*** it. All of it.

 

This is the first day, in 31 days and nights of chemo, when I just wasn’t going to bother to post; I'd had enough. But R suggested, rather firmly, that it might make me feel a bit better, so here we are again.

The last few days have been terrible, with the chemo cycle at its height, and the Chemo Demons wreaking their worst, but it wasn’t the physical torment that finally broke me, or that fact that I am now so weak and overwhelmed by numbing fatigue that it is hard even to get up off the sofa and walk from one room into another.

It was an email from a dear and much-loved friend.

One of my closest friends -  not one of my oldest friends, but someone with whom I have shared a great deal over the last four years, including all the secrets of my heart -sent me an email this morning, an email that made me break down and cry.

 I won’t quote it word for word, but what it said, in essence, was this:

‘I went out for lunch with a friend yesterday, and it reminded me how things used to be with you, when we would sit and talk for hours. I so miss the old funny, witty, Caroline – I miss our talks about love and life and books. I really admire how you’re dealing with cancer by writing the blog, and talking about it – I know that you have built yourself a big circle of support, but I can only wish you well from the periphery. I have a phobia about illness, and now those talks we had have been replaced by the evil big C - you’re all about the cancer.

I want the old Caroline back, and until she comes back, I can’t really be at the centre of things; and in the future, you will need someone who doesn’t remind you of the bad times. I want our friendship to still be about all those other things,  that will return to you when all this horror is over. Don’t let cancer destroy who you are. When this is over, I’ll always be around and be your friend.’

 Yes, I miss the old Caroline, too: she was taken away from me without my consent, and I doubt if I’m ever going to get her back in her original form.

I grieve for her every day, but not all the time, because most of what little energy I now have is taken up in the business of trying to stay alive. No, I can’t maintain friendships in the way I used to, because right now, I have to find a way not only to survive the cancer, but to survive the ‘treatment’ without losing my mind. Writing the blog is a coping mechanism, and if that makes me ‘all about the cancer’, well - actually, that’s just too fucking bad.

I’m sorry if the thought of my illness upsets you, and if hearing about how I spend my nights vomiting makes you uncomfortable – but hey, no one is forcing you to read the blog. Or to write an email telling me how distressing it is for you to have to interact with me now that I am so visibly and audibly bearing the stigmata of cancer.

I don’t expect people to be there for me endlessly whilst I’m going through this; I’m happy to receive support when it’s offered, because this is the hardest thing I have ever had to deal with, but I don’t expect it, or demand it.

We all are who we are, and some have more capacity for empathy than others; we all have busy lives, and there is a limit to what we can do. If someone needs quietly to drift away from me right now, then no harm done.

But there was something my grandmother used to say, which has always struck me as remarkably sound advice: if you can’t say anything nice, then don’t say anything at all.

Because I miss the old Caroline, too, more than I can possibly say.

And having it spelt out to me in writing, so very clearly, just how much I have changed, what I have lost, the difference in how others perceive me, broke me today in a way neither the cancer nor the chemo, separately or together, had previously been able to do.

So if you see me walking down the street, and I start to cry each time we meet, walk on by, walk on by….