Am I a vegetarian or an attention seeker?

At my brothers wedding in 1994 I pushed the beef around my plate before I cut it into tiny pieces hoping to hide it at the side of my plate. I kept sneaking envious peeks at the vegetable lasagne my veggie friend Mike was tucking into beside me.

The following day I made an announcement I am a vegetarian. Meat for me is history. But I couldn't turn my nose up at a plate of steaming fish and chips so I became a pescetarian. 

Then after my brain tumour surgery the smell of crispy bacon nearly drove me insane. One day Mr H found me tucking into a home made crispy bacon sandwich with red sauce dripping off my chin. 

When my nephew quipped that I was attention seeking, I declared...

I am a pesce-crispybacon-tarian!

In the last five days, since my first chemotherapy, my appetite and taste buds have gone on strike! I have eaten dry cream crackers, the odd ginger biscuit, a packet of salt and vinegar crisps, a solitary fish cake, a bowl of stewed apple and a couple of pears.

Today when Mike takes me to the sea for the day, his jaw drops to the floor when I ask for a coke, full strength, not diet, in the cafe as we sit down to rest. 

You never drink pop

I know but this and lemonade and have been all I can sip without feeling sick. I manage glasses of water later on in the day but not before mid afternoon! 

My toasted tea cake tastes like a serviette so like a child I pick out the currants one by one and pop them into my mouth. They taste like currants!



On our way home we stop at my local shops. I crave crispy bacon and egg which I get from the deli. In the Nisa store Mike carries the basket, his grin of amazement spreading as I drop in two bottles of coke and 7 UP, a packet of cream crackers and two packets of Walkers salt and vinegar crisps!

Now my nausea is slipping away dinner is a tea plate banquet! 

My first chemotherapy and getting Jack in the box

Dawn

Yes

Are you ready to come through?

No not really I say with a dimpled grin

But I stand and put one foot in front of the other until we reach the corner I am to sit, well recline. Tears seep into the corner of my eyes when the nurse asks how I am feeling?

Scared. Scared of how I will feel when the drugs go in. 

Mr H reminds me the drugs will stop any rogue cancer cells settling into my body so I shuffle my bum into the seat. I am ready.  

I swallow five tiny white tablets, steroids and anti emetics to prevent me feeling sick. A heave tries to sneak out but I tuck it back in. Stupid, too early for that. Just fear.

They bring in the syringes lined up in a blue tray. 


The PICC line put into my arm earlier in the week will last until August if we treat it like a fragile flower.



 I chat to Mr H and the nurses as the red and white drugs slide painlessly into my vein. I feel an oddness which is hard to explain, my palms are sweaty, caused by anxiety I assume. After an hour and a half and we wander out clutching a sweet shop of pills and injections.

At home I sip soup while we laugh at Father Ted's antics. I laugh so much I have to make a quick dash to the loo. But in bed the nausea rolls and buckets and bacterial wipes are put into use!

I do a mindfulness body scan to settle and rest.

...Today my chemotherapy nausea is like a Jack in the box who refuses to be hidden. Not only does he keep popping up but he laughs at the anti sickness tablets. I call the oncologist centre and get some sound advice to obtain another prescription for a second drug. It takes three phone calls and a GP visit to me at home before a prescription for different tablets gets Jack back in his box.