Ally McLaws – Living with cancer during a pandemic: Oh, how we laughed. Then the jokes stopped…
Two weeks into my new treatment and a young mum whom I worked with a while ago started her breast cancer treatment on the same day.
“We can go bald together,” she messaged as we both headed independently to our respective treatment centres.
I know she is braver than I have to be – she
is a single mum with a young daughter relying on her. I think we may talk often in the days ahead.
Meantime, the side effects my oncology team spoke of have arrived – oh, how they have arrived. I’ve already talked about the complete destruction of taste buds – for someone who loves their food this is a major blow. My head and body hair follicles are dry and itchy, and my hair shedding is peeking round the corner. The inside of my mouth feels like it has been carpet-bombed with ulcers.
Food is not appealing – five kilos have dropped off in the past seven days. Probably a combination of food reduction and the raging battle between my body and cancer going.
There are a lot of things going on at the moment, both physically and mentally.
I remember resisting the idea of a wheelchair for a while. We made jokes about fitting it out with go-faster stripes and a ghetto blaster.
Then the jokes stopped and I just bought one.
Laura suggested a shower chair the other day. I quietly ordered one. No jokes this time. It arrived on Friday.
This list of aids – now including walking sticks, a gadget for picking things up, a back scratcher and an elongated shoe-horn – is temporary. It’s a means of getting through this stage.
After all, I have a combined treatment I’m hopeful will work.
The odds are decent enough. I hang on to that. Meanwhile, the inevitable waiting for the results of yet another scan hover above us. We travelled to the Golden Jubilee on Thursday for a brain and spine MRI – this should give further insight into the damage inflicted on my thoracic vertebrae, two of which have crumpled either because of cancer or as a result of prolonged use of steroids.
The brain image will let us know if the tumours in there are shrinking following stereotactic radiosurgery.
Now, here’s an interesting thing I just discovered: when you have non-small cell lung cancer and it spreads to your brain, you end up with lung cancer tumours in the brain – as opposed to brain tumours.
As Michael Caine, my favourite actor, might say with a Cockney twang, “not a lot of people know that”.
Ally McLaws is a freelance specialist in writing, business marketing and reputation management. See the full range of services on offer and view all previous back issues of this column at www.mclawsconsultancy.com
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