Memories…

January 18th, it is ten years since I went in to hospital…

I remember the white,

Crisp snow,

Starched sheet,

The dark of the night,

Defeat…

The bare all,

The recall,

The hair fall,

(The long hall)

The pain sharp yet bright,

Spilled drinks,

Silk pyjamas,

The bandages tight,

And going bananas…

Isolation,

Creation,

Mutation,

Foundation.

The treatment weeks were like a black hole I fell deeper and deeper in to. The day I had my first operation it snowed and then the lump wasn’t enough for the margins and there was lymph node involvement, so the week after I had a mastectomy. At this point I had a breast implant that then rejected and my body started destroying itself, and it was a challenge to get the medical team to respond -but all of that was the start of all of this, and it has been this that has underpinned change in my life, for the better…

assumptions…

“shows us your boobs”

they shout for a laugh,

a pub crawl,

a street brawl,

not funny by half…

I’ll lift off my hair

and lift up my top,

then you’ll blush,

your friends hush,

’cause your joke’s a flop…

I am very happy with being me, probably happier than most, but one thing that I still find hard is the “get your tits out” joke (and I have also been a party to other women who know I had a mastectomy joking that they “flash” their cleavage!).  I remember a long time ago a young girl having chemotherapy and she would come into the pub I worked in and literally get a laugh out of taking her hair off -much water has passed under the bridge since and I wish her more well than she will know, but I admired her pluck and do still…  It is assumptions that are the problem, and I wish I had more guts, but then, just imagine if I had…

A new year…

Regarding personal fitness (BMI),

I’m absolutely perfect and here’s why,

No ache for cake,

No thick milk shake,

Can break my resolution not to die…

Advice, I’ve taken shed loads, good and bad,

Literature fanatical (and plain mad!)

Reduced my caffeine in,

No carbohydrate sin,

And overall my wellbeing makes me glad!

When told to take a cure and shed my hair,

My radiated front even seemed fair,

My lust for life,

A surgeons knife,

The rational price to pay for breathing air…

So why is wine (with dinner) so seductive,

I know the stats say not at all constructive,

I’ve foregone more,

Yet I implore,

For me can Chablis really be destructive?

We put up with a lot in life and I am reluctantly embarking on a dry (most of) January… I know it is good for me, but I don’t do a lot of other bad things… Two days down, twenty five to go!