Saturday, November 17, 2007
| What a slacker.......... Oh I say, I've been really lazy about this blogging malarky haven't I? I think Santa may have got my note because despite my neutraphil count being only 1.3 on the Friday they somehow got up to 1.6 on the Monday!! Woohoo! Chemo number 7 full steam ahead. However I was desperately tired having been awake from 3.30pm on the Sunday and just wanted to sleep. Tough luck. I managed to sit myself next to a poor old chap who had enjoyed good health his entire life only to end up with leukaemia and then have a stroke mid treatment. To be fair apart from the fogginess and memory loss he was doing really well, no paralysis or speech trouble, unlike one of my bowel cancer buddues who had a stroke on the operating table, then got lung problems on top of being stage 4 and was looking pretty grim for a while. (If you or Sandra are reading this Dave, a big High Five for hanging in there and coming out the other side). He was in a total fog and asked me the same questions about 6 times. It's not an easy thing to reassure someone in a worse state than you when you are on the verge of madness through lack of sleep. Every time I closed my eyes to try and doze, he asked me again, "How often do I come here love?". Tuesday I saw my lovely surgeon (now by lovely I do not mean the marrying kind, he's just a bloody good surgeon and he saved my life). More agonising examinations......grr I wish I didn't know how big those rigid sigmoidoscopes are.......just the thought of it makes me clench. He couldn't see enough due to the pain (and my cries of OW were probably putting him off) so is going to do a flexible sigmoidoscopy under sedation in the new year. I have had one without sedation but given my radiation damage it's too painful now. Of course given that my sisters seem to be immune to sedation I'm not looking forward to that either! If everything looks OK and has healed properly then I should get my reversal sometime from March onwards. Five days in hospital and then about 3 weeks in the toilet (must redecorate them both as a priority) and oh bugger - I get my body AND my life back......... What the hell am I going to do then? Well firstly I'm going to have to start applying for jobs closer to home now. I need to find an employer who doesn't mind the fact that I'm going off sick for four weeks minimum in March............end of the financial year.......hmmm. Busy period for most businesses. Of course you'd think I'd consider going back to my current job - firstly no-one has bothered to tell me what the hell I can do IF I go back. My seconded job has ended, my desk no longer exists. My job prior to secondment a year ago has been subject to re-organisation and no longer exists. Add to that, I haven't been there since February and have probably forgotten how to use our systems. Oh and the thought of driving for an hour each way with an unpredictable rear end doesn't fill me with excitement. My best friend, both at work and outside work is out in the field following promotion and a lot of good people have been made redundant or left in my absence. I'd love to be made redundant. Just this one time. I've done the trekking down to London to hot desk down Shaftesbury Avenue at Performance offices where you can just plug your ipod into the sound system that filters music into to the office all day. I've done being out of the house for 13 hours just to complete a 7.5 hour working day and frankly it sucks. I spent 7 years working my way around the company to get a job I loved, was good at and wasn't phased by meetings with directors because they knew me by name. My half pay is probably all I'd get locally for doing a full working week! But it's all relative. I've been working since I was 14 (part time then obviously) apart from the 5 years I took off to be with my babies. Thanks to insurance my mortgage is now much smaller so I can afford a drop in income. This is the first year I've ever claimed Tax Credits and am frankly stunned that I qualified on what I thought was a bloody good salary for additional pay outs. I just want something easy with a small friendly firm, close to home or schools which covers the mortgage, the bills, fuel and food with a little left over. Which is exactly where I was before but I had a bigger mortgage! Weird thing is, now I know I'll still get tax credits to top me up to over the income I was earning before..........so I feel guilty if I accept them because I've always managed without benefits since I was 18. Then I think about the hoardes who never bother to work at all. I think about the hard graft I've put in working 7 days a week, or 5 days and one night shift a week (I'm practised at staying awake for over 30 hours at a time and still feeding children, doing laundry etc). I think about all the prescription charges I paid for when I was entitled to an exemption and I think SOD IT. I got cancer, I dragged myself through it with a lot of help mostly from my little Umpalumpa and three very good friends (Angela, Hayley and Mike). I've earned the right to take what's on offer for the next year or two aren't I? More importantly my children have earned the right to see their mother recovering and NOT being away from home. The thought that I may now be able to take them to school, fetch them home with a bit of work in the middle is keeping me going. Once I've got some energy back and am not bedridden by lethargy, pain and side effects. Next year is suddenly looking a hell of a lot better. Meantime, I've got to jab myself in the belly with the GCSF - little soldier cells just have to fight their way through to 26th November so I can have a party on the 28th when hopefully the 53cm spaghetti will get ripped out of my arm! WOO.....AND INDEED....HOO! Please keep them crossed people xxxx
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