50) Drink champagne in one of the best bars in the world just before Christmas to celebrate still being alive.
It’s exactly a year since I was told I may only have six months to live!! And here I am, very much alive.
I marked the special day with a festive chemo cocktail at hospital. But I’ve also had some proper celebrations. If you keep beating the odds what else can you do but drink a glass or two of champagne.
Happy Christmas! x
If you’ve never experienced chemotherapy then you should consider yourself incredibly lucky. It is really, truly, one of the worst things I’ve ever had to go through.
I’m now just over half way through my current course of treatment. What makes it so bad is that it builds up in your system. This cumulative effect makes each evil chemo cocktail more horrific than the last one. This stage is also tough because I’m still a while off from finishing.
It seems like ages ago that I had chemo no 4. It’s taken me more than a week to start to feel sort of normal.
My normal is very different these days. It means I feel okay. I’m not stuck in bed. I’m not throwing up. I’m not feeling too emotional. I can walk without too much pain. That’s my new normal.
Despite this I still quite enjoy the actual chemo day itself. As usual I had lovely friends there to help distract me. They came armed with some very thoughtful presents. So Chemo no 4 went quickly.
But within hours, I could feel that the poison was working. This doesn’t usually happen so fast. Over the next few days it got worse. It seemed like I was tumbling into a deep pit of misery. My body and my head hurt so badly. There was intense tiredness and nausea and all sorts of other horribleness. It took four days to hit rock bottom. It was a very dark, bleak place and it took far too long to leave.
Now, I’m out and suddenly it’s almost Christmas. When you go through cancer treatment you kinda dip in and out of life. You lose track of time.
Luckily I have something to remind me about 25th December. My next session of chemo is on Christmas Eve. It’s not the most festive of things to do. But I’m still here. And this time last year I wasn’t sure that I would be.
helenfawkes 