Sweet or savoury? Seeking flickers of myself...

Post-surgery and post cancer diagnosis I haven’t really felt like myself. Unsurprising perhaps, but to go from a fit, healthy mother-of two, loving life and work, to a cancer patient with a colostomy bag, a laparoscopic scar and a chemo recommendation overnight is a pretty big leap.

Three weeks on from surgery and the scar is healed, my mobility has returned, the pain killers have become thankfully unnecessary and I consider myself consciously competent, if reluctantly, at managing my stoma.

Of course the shock of the cancer diagnosis is still gradually sinking in, and the practical impact of starting chemo has yet to hit home, but in this interim period, the calm before the next storm, I feel and look (ironically) well.

Three weeks on I find that each day there are more and more flickers of my old self, and I am oh so very grateful for the return of each seemingly trivial piece of normality. The discovery that I actually want my daily morning coffee again after weeks of declining it. The increased craving for sugar and chocolate (which has hitherto been a hallmark of my tastebuds and a lifelong struggle to master) marks a turning opint after days of desiring salty crisps and savoury stodge…which I’m guessing my body perhaps needed after surgery?

I’ve been phenomenally lucky in having had my evening meals provided these last two weeks by my mother-in-law and sister-in-law, along with a few good friends who’ve come to my rescue to build me up after a week dining on the NHS. My ‘meals-on-wheels’ deliveries have been a huge support, a godsend, it’s meant that I have good food and a full fridge without any of the effort of thinking about what to cook, what I need to shop for and the energy-sapping exertions that can accompany both of these chores.

There’s a part of me that wants such an amazing service to continue indefinitely, but today, as a minor accompanied outing (imperative to alleviate cabin fever during my temporary driving ban) I went food shopping. Not the big, mentally and physically overwhelming kind, just a short, but somewhat overpriced circuit of the local high-end chain to snaffle a few essentials for lunch. I’ve so never been so thrilled to visit Waitrose in my life…to wheel a little basket around the aisles and queue up at the tills like a normal person. Mad really, but I can only liken it to returning to the UK after spells of culinary privation whilst travelling and working in less developed countries. Full shelves and incredible choice engendered similar delirium on returning to the UK.

Anyway, each step towards normality is welcome. Kareoke in the kitchen during a weekend breakfast, an autumnal walk to the playground with my children and dogs, I am even grateful for being able to leap across the room and grab a tissue to wipe my son’s snotty nose. I couldn’t have done that a week ago.

Clearly there are still barriers and further steps to healing, I STILL really can’t pick my kids up…which has the silver lining of getting me off nappy changing for probably another week. (Get in!) I STILL can’t drive, which is actually a frustrating quirk of the insurance system. But however temporary such improvements are (I’m informed I may yet regress to a saline loving, non-coffee drinking monster during chemotherapy), I am really loving feeling a little more like me each day.

Softening the blow...and other skills I do not yet possess

At some point in our life it is highly likely that we will all be recipients of bad news. Yet I have never considered what it means to be the bearer of sad tidings, nor indeed the skill set required for such a role.

I can't imagine that anyone likes giving bad news, and yet this last week has taught me that the ability to communicate misfortune and to deliver misery with compassion, empathy and humanity is a phenomenal capability indeed.

How do you shatter someone's world, yet leave them clear about how, in time, the broken pieces of their life may be reassembled? How do you simultaneously remain firm and authoritative whilst conveying genuine regret and sadness?

I've never had to think about such things until confronted with them head on. 

The surgical registrar at St.George's hospital charged with telling me 'it was not good news,' that within 30mins I would be 'in theatre,' and that I would wake up with a colostomy bag and ongoing uncertainty about my future prognosis was extraordinary. I will never forget the kindness, clarity and compassion with which he delivered such sudden and shocking news. He made it easier to accept and set the tone for my journey ahead. My brain is too fuzzy to remember his name, but whoever the on call, South-African surgical registrar was on Sunday 23rd October. I will not forget you.

This experience has left me profoundly grateful that such people exist. On reflection I have realised that many professions; the police force, the judiciary system, health and social workers and doubtless countless others all need this skill every day. To all those who have this skill.. I salute you. 

This revelation has also made me ponder what other skills I do not yet possess. Clearly the tangible, hard skills like roofing a building, making an origami animals, plucking a partridge, playing the bassoon and writing Arabic are things that can be taught and learned. I can easily list capabilities that I have... or believe I have(?)... and those where I haven't a scooby-do (that's 'faintest clue' in rhyming slang FYI).

But soft skills are different. Harder to acquire yet arguably so much more important to our lives and to how we interact with those around us. How often do you meet someone that REALLY listens? How frequently are you impressed or touched by people who engage you in your everyday life?

These soft skills, particularly compassion and empathy make the world a better place. 

Last year in Sainsburys, whilst chaperoning a fractious and teething toddler around the store chomping on breadsticks, simultaneously heavy pregnant and exhausted myself, I encountered two more individuals who really   moved me. 

At the checkout, whilst paying, I lifted a now wailing daughter out of the trolley seat. She promptly vomited profusely over me, herself, the till, the card reader and my shopping. Faced with this situation the cashier could have rolled her eyes, and the lady behind me in the queue waiting with own groceries on the conveyor belt could have grumbled and chuntered, but neither responded thus. 

The cashier could not have been kinder. Without betraying a trace of irritation she called colleagues over the tannoy to bring baby wipes, a clean T-shirt for my toddler, tissues and a mop and bucket, and could not have been more reassuring and gentle, insisting that 'it didn't matter' as I desperately tried to apologise to her, to the queue and to dab most ineffectively a what felt like lakes of vomit with a few mangy, pre-snotted tissues from my pocket.

Similarly the lady behind me in the queue came up to me, put her hand on my arm and 'It'll all be ok. Don't worry. I can easily wait.' Compassion AND patience. Patience is another item to add to the list of qualities I'm not strong on (although I deserve an 'improver' badge thanks to three years of parenthood).

At the time I recall bursting into tears at the kindness of strangers. A combination of pregnancy hormones, exhaustion and my own predisposition to crying, but perhaps also because I fear/know that I would have been the one stamping my foot, rolling my eyes, huffing and puffing as I relocated my groceries to another checkout.

So my reflection for today is to feel grateful for those people who every day manifest those amazing soft skills like empathy, compassion and humanity, and to consider how I can work on my own in the future.

The origami Pegasus of my dreams

Thank you to glue

What is not to love about glue? 

It sticks, it brings things together and on a really rough day I'm told you can even improve your mood by sniffing it! Joking. Please don't do that. (Although if anyone can lay they hands on a Pelifix, the blue Pelican themed glue stick that dominated my 80s schooldays, and is now doubtless irrevocably changed, I'd love another whiff of that coconutty cobalt delight before the science teacher busts me.)

Glue can stick almost anything together. 

It can reverse accidental (or purposeful) breakages, can act as your weapon of choice for another botched DIY job, it can glue little shaky eyes to conkers (my 3yr old), fingers to tables (my 3 yr old again) and occasionally it performs minor miracles.

On my tummy there is now a 20cm long incision from above my navel down into my groin. I believe the technical term is midline incision. Now 'flaunting it' in a bikini is relatively low down my priority list at present, but owing to the miracle of surgical glue, I think that might just be a possibility in the future. (We will ignore the stoma issue for now)

But seriously, what might have become a gnarly scar suggestive of a career fighting in bear pits (which is clearly not entirely dissimilar to wrestling my toddlers at times), is set to simply become a fading memory of a difficult period.

Surgical glue is truly amazing. It makes my wound feel like a varnished spine snaking across my lower body. Like the knobbly, crested ridge of a dinosaurs back. I have a stegosaurus on my tummy, what an exciting prospect! My son would be thrilled if only he understood.

I can't remember when I last gave a second thought to glue. It may be an essential in my 'arts and crafts' box for rainy days, and in my toolbox for breakages, but today, in honour of surgical glue (which I probably never will, and never should lay my hands on), I will be purchasing it's less powerful cousin 'skin glue' to add to my first aid kit so that, if needed, I can share this minor miracle worker with others who may need it in the future. 

Thank you glue.