15/04/19
Woke up with sore boobs. But the cub is getting much better. So I distract myself with that happy scenario and try and ignore the soreness. Feel like I’m just being a hypochondriac and that it’s nothing. I’m also going through some mega hot flushes. They are a real treat – let me explain – they start at my stomach and rise up until my head feels like it is so hot its going to explode. The wave keeps rising for at least ten minutes, settles to a steady heat and then subsides after anything between five to thirty-five minutes. It is like being cooked from the inside out. When it comes on the immediate reaction is to remove as much clothing as possible. Which obviously isn’t possible in work settings but by god, the last few days I could have easily got naked in front of a number of colleagues just to alleviate the heat for a short period.
Absolutely lovely. Now 40mins may not seem too long but these flushes are happening at least five to ten times a day. Christ, I thought I’d have a few more years to prepare for this but nope. Now’s the time. Pragmatic me is trying to make this a good situation and say that I’m getting this over and done with. In reality I am not enjoying this so much. It’s not great in meetings when I am so distracted by a sweaty top lip and spine with a river of sweat running down it. Purely gorgeous stuff here!
The problem I also have is that I feel like I’m being taken back to my insecure days as a manager, when I would flush bright red if I spoke in controversy, if I didn’t quite meet the mould, if I was put on the spot and didn’t know my stuff. And now I feel like the flushes make me look like I am blushing or getting flustered when in reality I am just going through the bloody menopause. I don’t know what is more ridiculous to admit too. I manage two males! They really don’t need to hear this! At some point though I am going to have to bite the bullet and make them embarrassed!!!!
Today has also been my last day with the CP. I took myself again, dealt with more traffic trying to derail me and arrived right on time as if the gods had planned it! I then spent ten minutes in there. Ten minutes. Because I was a smart arse and told him what I thought he wanted to hear! I blagged that I was doing self care, that I was looking after myself, that I was thinking about self love. I told him that I was doing my three minutes per day mindfulness as religiously as I do my teeth, that I was writing down worries during the day and saving them up for ‘worry time’. That I was rationalising my fears rather than catastrophising. I told him all of that in two minutes. And for those entire two minutes – as a full grown adult – I lied. Utter bollacks. I have used the mindfulness to help me nap in the day when I have had my days off (it works a treat, but totally not what it is meant for!), I never set a time to deal with worries, and I still internally catastrophise about cancer (I am really good at not doing it with anything else as I always have been but cancer is the thorn in the side on this one).
I mean, I absolutely think he realised, but also that I might not be for changing. He asked me if I needed more sessions and I said I was all good.
I then spent the next 30mins in the car (I mean I had paid parking for an hour!) and tried to work out why I was not self healing and medicating with some alcohol and a bravado that I hope will get me through. To accept help for my mental health is so alien to me. I have spent my whole life being very mentally well. Not understanding anxiety, depression, or any other form of MH. In my 20’s I would have been so blasé about it. Big girl pants will get you through any situation would have been my go to comment. In truth I know I have said those words to my mother about family or friends that she has spoken about. Reality is biting me in the arse now. Because big girl pants aren’t getting me past these dark thoughts. They aren’t helping me manage the distress I feel when I think about this journey and how I am going to live with a different reality on the other side. FML. What am I doing here to myself. Distraction and deviation is my game here but at some point I need to really deal with this. That won’t be today. But I kind of know it’s going to be one day.
I’ve spent tonight trying to work out whether it is my bra that is causing me pain or whether it is actual real pain in my boobs? I am trying to ignore it. I’m going to pretend it is the bra situation as I can’t quite get that right now I am even more uneven than I ever have been and that I am just not sitting comfortably. Trying to type on my wee laptop on a weird angle won’t be helping!!
And then I read a blinder of a post on the secret FB group, a young girl had Triple Negative breast cancer, and here she was today, three years later, with a secondary diagnosis of cancer in her liver and now at Stage 4. Fuck. This bloody disease is brutal. For moments I am blown about in a hurricane of emotions, I feel sad for her, furious for her, furious for me that I am always going to live in a state of waiting but also trying to live life to not waste it as it might never happen. I will not catastrophise. But it is so easy to do. What a way to end tonight.
16/04/19
Good god, today has started the same way as yesterday ended. The first news article I see in my newsfeed is about ‘you are what you eat’. They (the press bollacks) are saying that that ‘bacon could cause cancer’. The difference between having 1 rasher or 2 could make a real difference on a weekly, monthly, yearly basis. I’ve stopped reading. I can read no more.
Right – I want to get off. I am tired of this ride and I don’t want to do it anymore.
But I will. I will continue these hot flushes and fighting to be fit. Radiotherapy is just around the corner and I am going to have it.
Northern Mama Bear 