Non Toxic!

It was a long and tough six months but the chemo is now done.  Yee hah and much love and thanks to all the lovely staff and fellow patients on the Nick Jonas ward at Winchester, you're the best!   

It'll be a while yet before I feel my old self, I  still have a mouth dryer than a nun in a desert but I'm beginning to feel more human by the day.  It's too early to tell but I think my hair will be completely grey when it comes back which would probably be a source of much distress to most ladies of my age but could prove a boon to me because I've hankered for platinum blond hair for as long as I can remember.  At the moment there is a white dusting of fuzz all over my head .....oh please!  I'm also wondering if my taste for chocolate will come back, at the moment I can't stand to be within sight of the stuff.  It  has been interesting how the chemo has given me cravings and especially dislikes.  Not only do I go off something but I want the offending item removed from the premises?  Alas, the lack of chocolate in my life of late does not translate to a more svelte figure, I have definately packed too much to travel with.  My sense of taste has been so dulled that I have craved salt, sugar and spice.  I have also eaten out more times in the last six months than I have done in years.  I've got a belly buddha would be proud of!  Time to start thinking of getting some exercise and then maybe one day actually doing it!

 

Yawn!

I’ve been rather quite of late, no excuse except a general dis-interest in all things thanks to the effects of chemotherapy.  I sleep a lot and dream things that if I could only remember them clearly enough would keep Doctor Who in storylines forever.  It’s the drugs I’m sure though I’ve always had weird dreams.  Whenever people wish me well and hope my dreams come true, they are in fact encouraging me to walk naked through a room full of people into a post apocoliptic landscape that is both Yorkshire and Moscow where the sky rains pepsi and I am desparately trying to type a page of numbers before my bus arrives.  The bus is a plane, is a bird, is an elevator hanging by a thread overlooking downtown Manhatten and I am trapped with Michael Stipe and a bag of jellyfish!  Discuss!

So anyway I’ve been doing very little except reading and lying down.  My Mother and sister are big fans of the crime fiction genre, the more gory and descriptive the better.  They send me their offcasts and I devour them in a day or two which might also explain my current demeanour.  I should perhaps be reading something light and fluffy with a rainbow at the end. 

How different we look without hair?  I’m not completely bald, still enough fuzz on there to make me human Velcro with everything from loose threads to pollen finding me rather attractive.  Folks who choose to have their heads shaved to this degree must be slightly masochistic because it prickles when you put your head on a pillow and it’s amazing how cold your head feels without a blanket of hair.  On a good note, haven’t had to shave my legs in weeks!

The story so far...

It's been a while since I last updated this blog.  I had my surgery and aside from a few hiccups I'm doing ok.  It's strange to come to terms with one side of your chest being concave but even that isn't as shocking as suddenly having an all too clear view of your pot belly!

I start chemo tomorrow so I'm spoiling myself with chocolate and rubbish telly today.  No matter how crap you feel, just watching  the Jeremy Kyle Show is enough to make you happy with your lot!

You wanna piece of me?!

This has been a hell of a week.   You often wonder how you will react if it ever happened to you, if you are the one in seven?  Well, I found out the hard way and it's completely surreal.   Last month I found a lump and four days from now I lose my right breast and then later my hair.  Breast cancer, just like my sister Maddy.   So far the hardest bit has been telling people.  Just putting it out there where it makes everyone feel scared and uncomfortable.   Still, now you know it means I can get on with things.

There is no easy way of coming to terms with a mastectomy so I have tried to address my feelings by making a boob to replace the one I am about to lose.  It may seem sick to some people but this way, when I am feeling down I can look across at it and think...ah, there you are!  The  work is called: You wanna piece of me?! which I think is suitably defiant.

A new me?

I've been feeling a bit compressed lately.  I was carrying a couple of parcels to the post office the other day when I stepped off a shallow kerb and jarred my back.  I'm at that age now when bouncing back is not an option, the shock absorbers have well and truly worn out.  After a few really uncomfortable nights trying to get some sleep I finally made an appointment to see the chiropractor.  It's a pleasure/pain thing, you know it's going to hurt but you welcome it just so you can get your shoulders out from under your chin at last!

Everything started out well but as she released the tension in one area I began to tense up in another.  Nothing to do with her technique but rather the action of releasing pressure on muscles can suddenly fill you with a dreadful need to fart!  I managed to disguise the first spasm as a need to sneeze but soon had to fess up because I was in danger of exploding.  "oh yes" she says, "it's a common side effect, just let it go and I'll open the window!"

WHAT?   NOOOOOOOO.......NEVER!!!

I'm not saying there haven't been moments when a wheeze of methane has escaped my person but to put on a wanton orchestration in front of an audience is certainly not one of the twenty things I wish to do before I die!  I simply did what all 'Ladies' should do and performed internal origami until I was sure all the bubbles had burst.

Anyway, where was I...oh yes, the chiropractor, she works wonders.  I go in like the missing link and come out a good inch taller and able to see my feet again.  Speaking of taller, a recent visit to the doctor for a check up resulted in me being 5'5" and not 5'4" as I had always been told.  I was not only taller but this meant that I was a good square further away from the morbidly obese gauge on the weight chart.  Alas my thrill was short lived when I realised that she'd measured me with my shoes still on and though they are flat she didn't know I had my in-steps in them - bugger!

How times have changed

Granted I don't get out much, my inability to drive coupled with living in the back of beyond leaves me with only a wheezey and forgetful old bus service or an exceptionally expensive taxi to bring me into the real world.  Thus I was rather shocked when sitting in Cafe Republic in Winchester last week to overhear a 'yummy mummy' order a 'babyccino and a pain o' chocolate' for an infant who couldn't even sit up unaided.  Whatever happened to Farley's rusks and some warm milk?  While I'm sitting there pretending to be all sophisticated with my decaff Americano I realise that there are infants out there who can not only pronounce Dolce & Gabbana but who know the difference between Brie and Camenbert!    My mate Jill confessed last week that even though she has used HP sauce all her life it only just recently dawned on her that the HP stands for Houses of Parliament.  "Didn't you ever wonder why they have that image on the front of the bottle" asked my husband aghast while we all laughed but inside I was thinking "yep me too!".   

Welcome to my blog!

Firstly, lets get one thing straight, I am a Sagittarian which if you're into that whole star sign thing (and I'm not) will tell you that I am restless, creative and most of all.....tactless! Please note that this is a birth right and not a choice so I cannot be held responsible for any rubbish that issues forth from my fingertips. So, now that we've cleared that up we can get on with the introductions. My name is Kate, I'm mid to late forties (only on the outside) and still trying to find my niche. I am an artist and maker, a writer and daydreamer, a housewife and feminist, a cat lover and insect recue'er and I don't like asparagus! I work from home where my biggest hurdle is trying to keep away from the fridge and stay motivated. My quest is regularly hindered by the teasing tentacles of ebay, etsy and anything more interesting that what I should be concentrating on.

Winchester Christmas Fair

Well that was an experience, let me tell you!  'Six in a shed' turned out to be as vague as the name suggests. We showed up, hung our wares and then repeatedly tried to make sense of it all. Scarves to the left of me, brooches to the right...here I am, stuck in the middle with flu! Cold? There is not a thermal garment on the planet that can fend off the north wind and I should know, I was wearing all of them! As expected the event bought a lot of visitors from far and wide but as also expected the credit crunch had beaten them off at the pass. People were happy to look but less keen to spend. No matter how enticing the sights, sounds and smells surrounding them, most people kept dead centre lest they be magnetically pulled in and forced to buy something. That said I did very well in the end, covered my costs and had enough left over to compensate for my efforts.

Happy New Year!

Despite the continued efforts of the government and the world media to insist we wallow in depression, I think we might just have a few things to look forward to in 2009. Not just Obamarama but hopefully a re-surgence in the importance of all things homespun and handmade. Like many of you I enter the year with a surplus amount of fat courtesy of the family sized tin of Quality Street that peeked out from under the Christmas tree and just wouldn't leave me alone. I am trying to be good and limit the treats but a small box of mini smarties is only 66 calories, t'would be churlish not to indulge.

I've got a few projects in the pipeline and an upcoming magazine feature so I've no excuse not to get stuck in and stay busy..... I'll just have a quick look on etsy first!