Dont Pity Me! (but please admire me…)

Argh, I am having one of those bullshit nights where I do not know what the hell it is I want. And, I have the hiccups. Man I hate those things.

Anyway, I was super tired at about 6:30pm tonight and was totally ready for an early night but because my chemo is due this week and because I love sparkling wine, I decided on a few drinks tonight. So, bottleshop lady convinces me on buying a brand where i can get three bottles for $20.00. Hell yeah I say, bring em on.

She asks me what I am celebrating and I tell her, my first lot of chemo starts on Thursday (today is Monday) and why not guzzle up until chemo? She says to me “geez, you are looking and sounding great considering what you are about to endure, or is that just a front?” Wow! This is the first person (beside my gorgeous sister who called me a liar when I said I wasn’t worried about chemo) so I say to my Sip N Save lady, nope, no front, just love bubbles and yes, chemo due Thursday which is a part of the chemo journey and you know what? I actually saw a bit of pride in her eyes. No pity, no sadness but only admiration/

She’d said to me she’d had a lump about 30 years ago just before she was due to be married and had a lumpectomy and was worried, soon to be husband, would not go through with the marriage due to the partial mastectomy. I said to her that I had the same shit going through my head with a man 11 years my youth who was about to be engaged to a woman with one boob (which has already been cut away and thrown in the bin), hairless, overweight, lethargic, and quite possibly toothless woman as his soon to be bride. I do think she tried not to laugh at the image but she just got me! She understood exactly what I was talking about and we had quite the giggle.

Seriously though, I loved that she asked if I looked and seemed as good as I portrayed  or if it was all a front. I told her that wow, thank you for being so upfront and honest with your question but in all honesty, it was what it was. I had not the energy or fakeness to be anything but what it was. I wasn’t afraid of cancer, nor losing (hairy) leftie, chemo, losing my hair or being tired and lethargic…. I was scared of the nausea and that was it. It felt great for someone to ask me if I was putting on a front. I loved that someone was just like me, giving me the opportunity to be ‘real’ but thankfully, I was being real and honest. I am who I am.

Here is a bit of the real part of me that may turn some of my ‘blogger mates’ to unfriend or stop following me but, yes, I do want to be the one when people talk in the village about me. I WANT to be talked and gossipped about. I want people saying, ‘You know that lady who walks the big white dog? Well, She is fighting breast cancer”. “The lady with the big dog has  breast cancer”! It is to be for the next woman in the community who finds out they have breast cancer can say to themselves, wow, that lady with the big white dog had breast cancer and she looks A OK. She walked her dog, she drank bubbles, she laughed and wore crazy coloured turbans and scarfs and beat breast cancer.

Thankfully in todays world, breast cancer is one of the cancers you want to have (out off the many options) because it is beatable. So I might walk my big white dog around Meadows with my funny looking headband (soon to be multicolored scarf) and coping with chemo (internal spa therapy) but still dealing with life. Loving life. It is no longer the death sentence it once was. I want to bring to my Meadows community a sense of Cancer not being a death sentence, it is a deterrent to stop us working for a while but we will get through it. I want to be there for these women. I am incredibly lucky to have women around me that let my right boob hang around,  blowing in the breeze and after all this, I want to be one of these woman for the next one who has to deal with one boob in the bin and one boob swinging in the breeze!

We have an amazing community in Meadows South Australia that gives us HUGS as we walk by. We are all here at hear your story and help where we can. If you are new to the area, pop out and say hi as we all walk our dogs past your house. Cancer really does suck, and even though we are lucky these days with treatment, we still need our neighbours. Do not be shy or afraid to say hi, do not be afraid to tell us your story.

My internal spa therapy (chemo) starts on Thursday

and already, I feel the love of the neighbourhood, friends and family. Take it. Hug it. Enjoy it.

I am not an overly huggy schnuggy person but having cancer has bought me a little closer, a little huggier than usual.

Tell the world what is going on. My Sip n Save friend had a lovely chat, she showed me the current ‘bulk buy’ and on I went on my way. Yep, have had a wee few of those suggested recommendations from my Sip N Save friend and feeling better than I was.

Friends, neighbours and support wont come knocking on your door, but when you meet them, be honest, open, take their sparkling wine suggestions and get on  🙂

Cancer isn’t a great thing to go through but you know what…. if we had what we had twenty years ago, it was possibly a death sentence. Today, it is a ‘glitch’ and once we are done, we’ll get back to ordinary life. WE are in a good place 🙂

Drink them bubbles and give me a call or message if you need a pick me up 🙂