Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER.
It’s very cold here, but the warm socks, thermals, tracksuit pants and faithful green-and-white sweater help ease the ice-cream headache. The drugs don’t hurt either! Well – they do sometimes. Cycle 2 and it’s like I have Tourette’s syndrome. Jerky, misaligned, finding everything hysterical. What a laugh! I can’t eat my sandwich without it hitting my cheek before it finds my mouth. What a laugh! Why am I finding everything so damned hilarious?
I look out, through the vast expanse of glass, over the rooftops of Richmond and I’m vaguely surprised I’m in this room with the cap tightly on my head, elastic strap around my chin. Photos of my daughter and me – “thumbs up”, grinning from ear to ear – manically probably, for how can this be my life?
I look at my husband, my rock. How did he come into my life just when he was meant to? He didn’t sign up for any of this, but here he is. How blessed am I? I get up to go the toilet and I am not sure why, but I am very wobbly – still laughing. It’s all so amusing!
All this to save my hair – whoops, to save my life. Add an extra 90 minutes to everyone’s day, on my behalf. My husband sits there, supportive, rock-like, holds my hand, watches me while I doze (thanks, drugs). My daughter, doing uni work, chatting to me, taking selfies. Nurses check in, put the cap on, tighten the straps, stick me with needles after a warm compress has been applied to my left hand. Always the left – have to look after my right arm. The right side – cheating breast, surgically altered by a brilliant surgeon. Nodes removed, all clear – but my arm could be an issue. No lines, no infection 0 you don’t need lymphodoema on top of everything else.
The puppet master pulls the strings, so we find ourselves here. We have to be here. There is nowhere else to be, nothing else to be doing. I saw ‘we’, but the only one who really must be present in this land of chemicals, large comfy chairs and vista windows, is me. I am the planet; my lover, my family, my friend, are my satellites. They circle around me because they love me and care for me. I am ministered to by caring, loving people who I am lucky to have in my life. I want to be their sacrificial lamb, their scapegoat, because I feel it’s a thing only I should have to do. I don’t want anyone else to do this. I want to do it on their behalf.