The day before results day

Author: Christina B

Flat, horizontal, numb. Sad chick has silently crept into the building filling my every pore with despair and apathy. Despite sad chick taking over I still have the failsafe default mom setting which causes me to drag myself out of bed, wake up sleeping son and make a pack lunch for him, whilst checking he has covered all bases of washing, brushing teeth, combing hair and creaming face in preparation for school. I kiss him goodbye and wish him luck for his athletic tournament later that day as he leaves the house bound for the bus stop.

Being sad takes up so much energy. It's draining. Why is is that today I'm not feeling more upbeat? I've had a lovely weekend and Sunday was textbook perfect, chauffeur driven to eat a delicious sunday lunch with my ex in laws so why am I feeling so rubbish?

I'm searching hard for feisty chick, the one that tells me I've kicked cancers butt and wears red lipstick and thigh high boots and attitude but where is she today? Ok so she's completely vacant..... Theoretical chick perhaps?

Let's break it down and look at why I'm feeling sad. Doh?! You have cancer you stupid cow no brainer. That's why you're sad.

"Get over it. "says a mean no bullshit chick voice in my head. She needs to bog off with her attitude, besides I don't actually have cancer now technically as it has been removed and is sitting in the pathology lab waiting for someone to look at the cell mutations after checking their emails, Facebook and having a morning coffee.

So I look into myself again searching for a logical reason for sad chick moping about all in me. Tomorrow is the day when I see my surgeon and he will give me the results from what they have removed. Depending on what they found in the lab (my histology report) will basically determine what treatment I will have going forward. Sad equals anxiety over future treatment. I'm nervous about finding out what further treatment I will need. " it's all part of the journey" and other meaningless cliches begin to take up space in my head.

The reality of the situation however is that chemotherapy may be needed which has a whole host of side effects from hair loss to mouth ulcers, flu like symptoms and generally feeling a bit rubbish. So I'm not looking forward to hearing that I need that, but if I reach out to my scientist chick she can reassure me that chemotherapy is a good thing as it rids the body of any potential stray cancer cells so in effect I should be grateful to have chemotherapy as it would also give some degree of peace of mind. I google chemotherapy but quickly tire of reading about the side effects after 2 paragraphs. Everything just seems such an effort today, like a upward hill journey when you are totally unprepared.

What tickles me is that people keep telling me how well I am doing. How positive and brave I am. I guess I don't really have a choice, shopping still needs to be done, cleaning and K's homework, school trips organised and washing and ironing done. Many days I want to shut myself in my bedroom and not come out. Nothing to admire about not getting washed and dressed until 3pm and watching Jeremy Kyle and ordering my son a takeaway for dinner. Nothing to admire about pretending to the outside world that you are busy sorting out "stuff" and you've "got this" so that you can lie on the sofa all day and hug yourself wearing a cosy fluffy dressing gown and miserable face.

I read somewhere that the reality of cancer is different from the image we try to portray. Yep they got that bit so right. Don't get me wrong some days I wake up and I'm pumped full of pink breast cancer positivity! One day I was so charged I tried to email Angelina Jolie to congratulate her on her difficult decision to have a double mastectomy on hearing that she had the BRCA gene. Today is no such day..... Today I'm searching for that sparkle, I think that sparkle is on the sofa with a duvet over me. It is a Monday after all.