Judging eyes

It happened again, another idiot with some sort of issue that they feel the need to take out on me. These last few days I'm very very VERY tired. My daily outing rarely includes more than a half hour trip to the supermarket in order to provide my other half with the gourmet lunches to which he has become accustomed since realising the benefits of a live in partner on long term sick leave, which he sees as 'stay at home wife with nothing to do but cook and clean'. He's disappointed on an ALMOST daily basis.

Anyway, today's outing brought me to M+S to pick up some lunch time yummies (see why I say ALMOST always disappointed?) where I met 'bitter that I'm working and not claiming benefits' lady. The conversation, started by her, went something like this. Lovely day out isn't it, yeah it's lovely. On a day off are you or did you call in sick for the sun ha ha ha ? No I wasn't supposed to be in work today. Oh, on holidays? No, I'm off sick at the moment. Ha ha ha and you're out, that's brave, what if they see you and know you're not sick? Well I'm on long term sick leave so it's ok if they see me. This is when she gave me THE LOOK. The ahhhh I see, a welfare scammer look and said under her breath, and far less cheerily, 'not too sick to be out shopping'. So I decided it was time to drop the C bomb. 'Well, I have cancer and I'm on chemo so it's good days and bad'. Her response? Oh I know someone who had that. Yes, genius, we all know someone who had THAT. Now, less of your judgement and more shelf stacking please. I still hope she'll never know what THAT is like.

This round has been tough for some reason, nothing big, no surprises, just some long lingering fatigue that I can't seem to shake. I haven't managed to accomplish much in my good week. I did get to catch up with some friends a couple of times which, in itself, can make a good week. I also, in an event unrelated to cancer, ran into the ER doctor who first tested me and told me it was looking like I had cancer. He had a good grope of my neck there and then, with no evidence of Pacman, and told me I looked 'remarkably healthy' for having had 5 months of chemo. One of the best compliments I could have had and yet one I wish I never had reason to receive.

The new PICC line is giving me some trouble, coupled with blood thinning injections my arm is looking a little worse for wear with all the bruising and bleeding. I remember however that I was quite unsure of the first one for the first couple of weeks too and grew to love it for the pain and anxiety it saved me from on chemo days, so lets hope his left arm counterpart (that my friends have named 'chewey', apparently due to the fact that it sounds like 'tubey' which begs the question why not just call it tubey?) grows equally in my affections. My right clotted arm, aka giant smurf arm, is also on the mend. The swelling is subsiding slowly but surely, the pain and aching is all but gone and it's looking a much healthier colour in comparison to the corpse-like colour it was a couple of weeks ago. I'm hoping that after a couple of months of blood thinner injections I will be done and that will be the end of my experience with 'extensive thrombosis'.

Speaking (typing) of blood thinner injections, these babies are not too bad at all. I am not bothered in the slightest by the self injecting which caused me so much anguish a few short months ago when they first suggested my blood cell boosting growth factor shots. The only problem is some fairly extensive stomach bruising at the injection sites. I've taken to living in dresses so that I don't have a waistband pressing on the site which seems to be helping, but lets just say a bikini on holidays will not be an option unless I want poor Nick to have to answer some pretty serious questions. Then again, with an extra 35lbs since my stomach last saw the light of day, it's probably a holiday more suited to a one piece either way! Not sure how I'm going to cope with the dress situation when the weather turns cold but it will work itself out like everything else. I'm sure someone somewhere manufactures and sells some sort of woolly moo-moo that will keep me and my newly large and blue belly warm in a non-bruising fashion.

What DOES feel good is the fact that I'm down to a countdown in days as opposed to months or weeks... 4 days until my 11th chemo, 17 days until my LAST CHEMO (I managed to convince them to give me the last one a day early so I have a better chance of being well enough to attend my friends hen party on the 29th by lying ....ha! And to think those crazy doctors are laughing at me thinking I don't understand the seriousness of my condition.... pppfffftt!) and lastly but by no means least, 25 days until I jet off on holidays to spend my final chemo recovery in the sun. I've said it before and I'll say it again...just keep swimming, just keep swimming. Eventually, I'll get there.