this week I spent more time on the sofa



Monday diahorrea immodium rotten morning drove to hospital cycled to shop to buy dress pattern

Tuesday am sore bum like hit with hammer-crying

I wrote this shorthand on Tuesday in case things got better and I forgot the beginning of the week. Actually week 3 was not so great. The mornings when I go to the loo I have terrible pain but by yesterday I had sorted a few things out. The Thursday review radiographers gave me steroid anti-inflammatory suppositories and cream for the piles that have flared up due to the radiation and are causing much of the pain, I have started taking paracetemol, and, it sounds overdramatic but I find crying with my face in a big soft piece of fabric makes it easier. I also now use cotton wool to wipe my bum and aqueous cream-this cancer is turning me into a big baby!
I am not eating very much because of the above but, aware of the fact I need to keep my strength up in order to recover, I do eat fruit for breakfast and one other meal a day. I also award myself one bounty bar every day and as many Tesco value milk lollies as I want as a small recompense for having anal cancer..the absolutely brilliant thing is that my skin is still fine- a slight sunburnt look-the opposite of the norm-a white body with a tanned fanny and arse.
Emotionally I am held up by the support I get given on a constant basis-yesterday spectacularly with the most beautiful bouquet of flowers Lou declared she had ever seen, and I agree, from my friends at work. I was also sent a beautiful blessing.
In the chemo waiting room on Thursday I sawsomeone I knew-a (mature) ex-student-he loudly told me you had to 'watch the staff as they made mistakes' and also told me at least I hadn't lost my hair as that's bad for a woman ,that with a woman opposite me with a  cold cap on who wa obviously in danger of just that happning. I realised this man was oblivious to the effect his words would have on others as he was probably plum scared-told me he couldn't wait to get on the surgeon's table...I thought then that I wasn't as scared as him and felt lucky-all things are relative!!
I am signed off work for 6 months although can go back before once I'm well again-my GP has a system of writing prescriptions at the flick of  a mouse-he patently felt so sorry for me he prescribed two vast boxes of co-codomal before I could stop him which I'm too scared to take because they cause constipation! I'll ask the review radiographers what they think or even Dr Tom as I have a clinic appointment next Friday before they hook me up to the chemo again.
I have a facebook friend ( the real (not FB) friend of a friend) who has had anal cancer. This means I can ask searching questions about symptoms and treatments from someone who has experienced them personally-what a boon and lucky to find him-there are only 900 people a year in the UK get anal cancer. He has recommended a cream no doctor would have knowledge of the Eros Original Bodyglide Silicone Lubricant and it's even available on Amazon-I have my aqueous cream from the hospital for day to day and my lovely Radiance Skin Gel from Penny Brohn for now still.
Tony has been cheering me up by reminding me of when we went to Paris 40 years ago. I had to go round the galleries as part of my Fine Art degree course. It was all wonderful especially the mayonnaise on the mini quiches, the Tuileries  and the Art. I've never seen the Pompidou Centre or the triangle in front of the Louvre-they weren't built then-Paris has to be on my list of things to do when I'm better and I don't have to suffer a sea crossing this time-I'll go by train or even (exciting!!) plane!
We went in 1971 before Tristan was born when I was listening to the Jefferson airplane-what with all my pills they are this week's choice for my Spotify playlist

well it has taken me a while but here are my magic things

• the pine cone I picked up on the walk at Stourhead with  Simon and Al 
• the stone dinosaur eggs Gethin chose specially for me at Sker
• a mental picture  of Lizard Point YHA car park looking across to the ocean
• this summer's kidney vetch and thrift and a little piece of Devonian slate from Booby's Bay 
• the shell i picked up on Tenby north beach right after I wrote 'I will be well' in the sand
• the very beautiful hankie my sister gave me to hold when I sleep and the birdsong she downloaded onto a memory stick
• the blackbird who sits on the aerial over the road every morning and sings me awake
• all the love, support, sympathy, messages, phone calls, humour, day trips,  flowers 'last meals' and apple pies that friends and relations have protected me with

Last week the chemo kicked in , also  the radiation dehydration (who knew?) and on Thursday through till Saturday evening I had the Fatigue...which actually once I tuned in to it was OK-basically sudden dips in the ability to move and speak and think requiring me to lie down close my eyes and vaguely hear things around me , conk out, come to again-all smimmy perceptions and droopy limbs like when I was very little. The other thing was the nausea which started once I stopped the anti nausea tablets (hmmmm). Thursday, Friday, Saturday (Thursday the worst) I woke up very early with what felt exactly like pregnancy morning sickness. The chemo pump was disconnected from my PICC line on Friday afternoon and I felt a great weight removed (metaphorically-it's about as big as a baby's bottle) and rushed home to put on my LIMBO and have a BATH!!

Last week was also notable for my Wednesday blood test showing I was anaemic and so may need a blood transfusion  (the radiation works best if you aren't anaemic). Also my PICC line had to be fiddled with every day because my clever body is trying to get rid of it by producing lymph fluid which was making the dressing wet. The PICC line lady was quietly excited, commisioned a digital photo of my arm exhibiting this rare reaction) and obtained my permission to show it to her PICC colleagues at their upcoming conference. It has stopped now thankfully. Also experienced the emotional rawness I had read about, basically most things touched me to tears..the blog's Spotify playlist gets the marvellous 'Crying' in honour of all tears cried

 I had a brilliant weekend-no radiography no chemicals and Lou's degree show. A marvellous family and friends weekend, I had some wine (one glass of wine -felt brill!!) and lots of laughter and art , finishing on Sunday evening after a fab Fathers Day meal in the hotel restaurant (I spotted Sherlock Holmes!!) with everyone back upstairs  in T, P and J's  hotel room  playing competitive hilarious Monopoly while I did some more swimmy droopy limbed lying on the bed zoning in and out of everyone  auctioning railways stations and exacting £6 rentals -back by taxi at midnight-rock and roll!!

hello and welcome

I'm sitting here with a thin blue tube disappearing into my arm ready for tomorrow when it will be hooked up to a chemical designed to stop my body from replicating cells -something it has faithfully done for me for the last 57 years giving me ever regenerated hair, nails, skin etc. The story of how this thin blue line  came to be where it is is already quite long.
Last October a young woman who wasn't looking where she was driving pulled out of a side road and knocked me off my bike. A few days later because my neck felt funny I went to the doctor who referred me to the hospital for physiotherapy. While I was at the docs I mentioned the recurrence of some bleeding when I went to the loo...and I guess because I am the age I am the doc played safe-anyway this March the other referral came through and I went for a sigmoidoscopy. Not particularly pleasant but a bit of deep breathing (ante natal class styley) was getting me through having a camera up my arse. Then  biopsies starting being taken and I was freaked -they had found something they didn't like the look of. Afterwards i listened while they called the cancer hospital and  they made me an urgent appointment while I sat and had my poor you cup of tea then I cycled to the sea and stared at the ocean  for a bit and went home. The results came back two weeks later. Cancer. I got given a card-the stoma nurse available to me anytime...I went home and started reading about colostomies and anal and rectal cancers .Very quickly appointments came through for a CT scan and an MRI (you lie in a tube for 25 mins with earplugs in while they say what sounds like 'wwwanoth5minuteswellduh' I closed my eyes and journeyed in my mind to somewhere I had been very happy). Lots more research -I made myself look at a Youtube video on how to empty a colostomy bag-I tried to imagine getting to a stage where I could be that person. I read books on how to eat to beat cancer, a directory of cancer resources, found the Penny Brohn clinic website and borrowed 'anti cancer a new way of life' from the library-all these resources are BRILLIANT. I started drinking green tea, roobosh tea, eating Omega 3 mix from the health food shop. Another appointment another doctor another nurse. This time she was a 'we are going to fry your pelvis front and back' nurse. The prognosois was brilliant-They found the earliest cancer they have ever seen-it doesn't show up on the scans, it's microscopic, hardly there at all . They are 95% certain that I can be cured. It's anal cancer-it's rare-they can't say why I have it-it was just bad luck. Bad Luck? There must be a stronger term  than that for such situations? Astoundingly bad luck at the very least.

The treatment for bad luck anal cancer ...takes the form of a chemical and radiation  attack on the site of the malignant cells and nearby lymph nodes ....unfortunately because the cancer cells is  me it will hurt me too-and it starts tomorrow.
4 days chemo 5 weeks radiating my pelvis, four more days chemo at the end-standard procedure -no need for the dreaded colostomy but the radiation comes at a price-side effects could be horrendous. The temptation to not do it is quite high-maybe if I ate enough oranges it would go away? Perhaps some meditation would still my hidden stress and the cancer would retreat and disappear? I've read some fab books ...eating well, meditating may work. Thing is I already have a healthy lifestyle-I exercise I cycle I swim I eat real food not processed, I have had a lot of people say it doesn't seem right i should get cancer when I do all the right things so...reckon the thin blue line will have to start feeding chemicals into my body tomorrow.

So this blog will be the story of my treatment. Sometimes it will be about how I feel sometimes it will include gory medical bits. It will include the things I add in like meditation, making smoothies with the juicer Rowan has lent me, my attempts to find an attractive plastic bath to sit in when the radiation burns are so bad I'm on morphine (yep it gets that bad)-why are british Sitz baths ugly old person medical applainces when in America you can buy these pretty ones (silly I know but it would be a happier Jen sitting in this one rather than this one
I guess this blog  will interest fellow sufferers mostly, hopefully some doctors, perhaps some strong stomached friends and relations...

• website that best explains anal cancer is the Macmillan site
• Joni Mitchell's beautiful song about wild and impossible dreams Amelia