15. Almost there

The next couple of weeks were tense. I heard nothing from the hospital about an appointment and, for both of us, the clock was ticking. I think it was a little harder, knowing now that I still had cancer cells in my breast muscle and that the delay between surgery and chemotherapy was past the optimum, well past. I found myself avoiding the essential massage of my near-dead arm for fear I might be massaging those cancer cells into action. Let them rest undisturbed.

I got an appointment to see Dr K at his clinic and he talked me through all the treatment regime and made sure I understood all the ramifications (ie side effects) before I signed myself over to the ministrations of the oncology team. That done, all I needed was a date. More waiting. I know I say it’s just a disease and I know I truly believe my challenge is less the cancer, more the treatment, but waiting was horrid. Eventually I rang and was told my first chemotherapy would be Christmas Eve. Even I could see the funny side, me laid out fighting off nausea and panic while all my friends celebrated with their families and got pleasantly pissed and stuffed. Well, only some of them - there’s a huge range from the abstemious to the raucous!

I went on my own for the preliminary appointment with T, one of the specialist nurses in charge of the breastcare unit. Den wasn’t happy about it but it was important to me to be seen not as the quivering obsessive at least once. Everyone accepted I had problems, as many other patients do, but I felt some of them oversimplified me, thinking I was scared of being around people. No, I was scared of myself as ever, other people only clouding the picture when (notice, not IF) panic hit me.

The phlebotomist left me with a giant bruise; the nurse was astounded at how good my blood pressure was (I forgot to tell her I’d taken a betablocker!) though she agreed my weight was way too low. T herself talked me through the whole process, showed me around, took me to make a hair loss appointment and generally did her best to reassure me. Dr K had left a prescription for lorazepam for use on treatment day. It was fine.

Well, it would have been fine for anyone without my obsession with vomiting. Nothing could convince me I could manage this without a major meltdown. I felt a bit of a nuisance, a bit hysterical maybe, and certainly obsessed with what I was sure was to come. Nothing reassured me. Such is the power of a phobia.