I Feel Like A Fake Sick Person

I know this title may seem kind of confusing at the moment, because from most angles, it looks like illness has taken over almost every aspect of my life. But let me explain.

My diagnosis, back in October, was for stage IV Hodgkin’s lymphoma, which, no two ways about it, is a scary sounding disease. Especially the stage IV part – normally diagnosis with any type of cancer at stage IV is pretty much an imminent death sentence. You tell people about it and they do the face (you’re probably doing it now) – the oh-my-goodness-I'm-here-for-you face. People ask you ‘how is treatment going?’ with a polite but semi-pained expression, and everybody is a bit too squeamish to utter the word ‘chemotherapy’ because they all associate it with waif-like ‘brave souls’ with bald heads and hollow eyes.

I feel like most people have expectations for what this illness is supposed to do to you and when I don’t meet those expectations, I'm violating some sort of unwritten contract. I'm letting you all down by not being sick enough. This effect is compounded somewhat by being the vicar’s daughter in the kind of village community where 'being the vicar’s daughter' means something. I spent a few weeks enduring an endless barrage of cards and flowers (some of which were, rather bizarrely, addressed only to my parents, as though it was them, and not me, who were being used as human pincushions), and was caught off guard that my overriding reaction wasn't ‘I am so grateful for these flowers and well-wishes’ – it was ‘I don’t feel like I am sick enough for everyone to treat me so kindly.’

So I think it's time to clear up a few misconceptions some people might have:

1. I am NOT DYING (cue party poppers, fanfares etc. etc.). Well, that’s a lie. I am dying, but only in the existential, ‘life is but a slow march towards our inevitable demise’ sense in which we are all dying. In fact, Hodgkin’s is one of the few cancers where stage IV is still totally ‘curable’, it just means I have to have a bit more chemo than I would otherwise. Even then, it’s only really stage IV on a mostly inconsequential technicality involving a lung (I’m sure you don’t need all the gory details). Basically, the gist is, if you’re going to get cancer, Hodgkin’s is probably one of the more convenient ones to get. It’s very likely that eventually, I will be fine.
2. I’m not going to be offended if you’re curious and have questions. People have a disconcerting habit of assuming diagnosis has turned you into this delicate precious flower who can’t cope with discussion of the realities of their everyday life without shattering into a million pieces. In truth, diagnosis has had rather the opposite effect of desensitising me to a lot of things which might have upset me before, and transforming me into a new creature composed almost entirely of prescription drugs and sarcasm. I have discovered that most doctors desperately need lessons in tact and generally treating their patients like human beings rather than collections of limbs and organs which need to be scanned/prodded/biopsied/[insert mad scientist procedure here], and thus, over the past three months, my skin has just about tripled in thickness. Ask me your question. Honestly, I can probably handle it.
3. Chemo isn’t as bad as you might think. For the most part, it simply gives me an excuse to sleep until early afternoon, wear joggers a lot, and conduct day-long marathons of Friends without feeling guilty about it. It can be frustrating on the days where I have no energy, especially since I have spent my whole life being the kind of person who needs to tick things off a to-do list in order to feel sane. On some days, I have actually written myself a list with three items on, two of which are ‘shower’ and ‘get dressed’, simply to afford myself the illusion of productivity. But if a week of tiredness is the worst thing I have to deal with, do I really have any right to complain? I then get the ‘good week’ of my chemo cycle and, provided that I avoid extremely crowded places and people with man-flu, I'm able to continue with life pretty much as normal.

There’s this batty old lady at church who keeps giving dad things to give to me. First it was a packet of rich tea biscuits because apparently that’s what people having chemo eat. Then it was a cutting from some kind of shrub or tree or something, which I ‘might enjoy the smell of and like to watch as it comes into flower’, and just yesterday it was a knitted knee blanket, because I'm ‘going to have to go to chemo when it’s cold in January’. I don’t need any of these things! These are Real Sick Person things! I don’t eat rich teas, I eat ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING because part of my prescription involves steroids; I don’t need to watch some twigs flowering because, contrary to popular belief, I am not completely bedridden; and I definitely don’t need a knee blanket, and can’t fathom when and why anybody would ever need a knee blanket. This batty old woman however, will not take no for an answer and I am left wondering what to do with these things and feeling for all the world like some terrible, terrible fraud.

Abi xx

A rambly sort of introduction

If you're reading this, chances are you already know who I am. I'm not naive enough to assume that my foetus of a blog is going to reach an audience of more than the few people who I over-enthusiastically message the link to, but just in case you got lost on your way to your next cat video and inexplicably found yourself here, let me inform you that your hair is looking fantastic today. Also, hi. I'd try to tell you roughly what to expect from this blog but at the moment, that's as much a mystery to me as it is to you. I always find the best way to avoid disappointment when embarking on something new is to get people to lower their expectations, that way even the most lame and vacuous thing I fart out might seem at least a little bit interesting. Feel free adjust yours accordingly. I'll wait for you.

Done? Grand. Now, I'm not going to lie to you, I'm basically only here because I have nowhere better to be. Fills you with confidence doesn't it? In all seriousness though, I am actually feeling quite excited about this whole thing. It's been far too long since I've written anything of substance and I'm definitely out of practice, but the only way to get back into practice is to... practise? Normally, university would serve to fill the void but my current (with any luck, temporary) occupation of Full Time Ill Person has delayed my return, leaving me with more time and more opinions that I know what to do with. Cue: shiny new blog.

I won't flatter myself with the assumption that I have anything especially new or original to offer the internet, but equally I think I have had a unique enough life so far to be able to contribute something. A cool side effect of writing about your thoughts is that it makes you examine them first, which helps you get rid of the illogical and toxic and downright bizarre and leave your head all shiny and full of happy things. At least, you'd hope it works like that, but I'm sure it doesn't really. I know there's a lot of weird that slips through my net, and it's been nesting between my ears for so long now that I'm kind of attached to it. The resident weird tends to make periodic appearances on my tumblr in the form of ranty, disjointed streams of consciousness but I'm hoping this blog will be better than that. It's going to be like my tumblr's responsible older sister, but the sort of responsible where it's also kind of cool and maybe agrees to buy my tumblr alcohol every so often provided it promises to not get pregnant. I'm not sure where this is going. Bad analogy is bad. Anyway, the point is that I'll try my best, but I can't guarantee the things you read here will be 100% sane 100% of the time. I'd tell you I'm sorry but I don't think I am.

These introduction-type posts always feel a little bit awkward so I won't draw out the misery any longer. I'll be back soon with something slightly more substantial; until then, I don't really have a good way to end this post. Everyone likes cake right? Cake is good? I'll leave you with cake.

Cake.

Abi xx