We arrive early to collect some anti sickness medication and then head to Maggie’s to kill some time. (Maggie’s is an amazing support centre for cancer patients based at Nottingham City.) It’s our first time and I feel awkward as the friendly volunteer ushers us in. It’s busy, so many people in the same boat. I don’t want to sit and talk to anyone else, we were just hoping for a quiet spot to collect ourselves before heading back to the chemo ward. We find our corner and I sit drinking my tea nervously. Before you start cancer treatment, it’s an unknown. We all know that people who have cancer have chemo and usually lose their hair, but the actual process remains mysterious. I didn’t know what to expect – when would I start to feel ill? How would I cope? Would I be allergic to anything? Would I experience any of the scary side effects my oncologist reminded me about? Would it affect my sleep, my appetite, my ability to exercise?

We walk back to the ward and sit down in the waiting room. The receptionist alerts Nick to the fact that it’s patients only in the waiting room so he gives me a kiss and heads off. I try to read and overhear another patient saying she has been waiting for her treatment for 3 hours. I glance at the clock, it’s been 40 minutes so far. Finally a nurse appears and calls my name and I’m ushered through to the ward, big comfy chemo chairs in place of beds. The ward is busy, buzzing with life. Nurses flit back and forwards inserting cannulas, changing medication and fitting cold caps. They coo over my veins and before I know it I am hooked up to a machine with the first infusion running towards me. I think about my friend’s aunt who had an allergic reaction to her first treatment and can feel myself growing anxious. I’m aware of the liquid passing into my blood and can feel it in my chest. I start to worry about chest pain and the nurse picks up on it and grabs a machine to do my obs. She sits with me while the first medication is dispensed to make sure it doesn’t leak into the surrounding tissue. I’ve heard tales of blackened veins and the idea that something that can cause such a thing is being pumped into my body scares me.

I’ve tried hard to reframe the experience of chemotherapy from something to be feared to something positive that will heal me but I’m finding it a challenge. A wise practitioner encouraged me to think of it as ‘love’ directed at me and encouraged me to be grateful for this window of opportunity in which I could heal. The surgeon was at pains to point out that at my stage, we are still looking at a cure and I try to bear this in mind. I’ve downloaded a guided meditation to try to hammer it home and stick my earbuds in and close my eyes.

With the changes in medication and the need to cope with cold head, hands and feet (I’m using gel slippers and gloves in order to try and prevent neuropathy), it’s hard to stay in my spiritual zone. I give up and notice the woman next to me is a similar age. Before long we have established that she also has breast cancer and is on a different chemo regime to me. She’s interested in my gloves and we swap tips about what might help. I’m impressed that she still has much of her hair and she advocates for the cold cap. I’m hoping I can keep some of my newly cropped hair so have given it a try.

It doesn’t take long for my treatment to be over and I sit patiently waiting for the nurse to remove my cannula. They are run off their feet, too much to do with too little time. As I walk down the corridor to meet Nick I wonder when I will start to feel different. As soon as I get home, I plonk myself in the bath and fill it with epsom bath salts. I try and remember to drink as much as I can but water has started to taste a bit weird. Slowly I realise that I’m feeling sick so I take some of the anti-sickness meds and head to bed.

The next few days pass in a daze. I don’t feel too bad at first but then the steroids wear off and I spend almost a whole day sleeping. Scared at the prospect of feeling poorly for months, I’ve been trying to carry on but I finally give in and let my body do what it needs to do. Saturday is Nick’s birthday so I’m desperate to be okay. We head out into the sunshine and I surprise myself by being able to walk for most of the day. I’m still feeling a little dissociated, but the worst is over. So far, it’s easier than a pregnancy with hyperemesis gravidarum and I did 2 of those.

Two weeks later and my hair starts falling out. Slowly at first, but then soon it’s coming out in clumps every time I touch my head. My hair falling out due to cancer treatment was firmly in the camp of ‘Things that Happen to Other People’ in my brain so it’s a bit of a struggle to come to terms with it. I wrap my head up in a scarf for a couple of days but then realise I can’t delay the inevitable any longer. A good friend helps me and encourages me to shave it off. My daughter agrees that a buzz cut would be preferable to my current predicament and in a fit of decisiveness we do it. I don’t want to look in the mirror. I am taken back to the day of my mammogram when I started to realise what was happening. I stood staring at my shoulder length hair in the mirror of the hospital toilets crying about the prospect of it going. It’s 7 months later and now my transformation is complete. I’m still struggling with the idea of looking like a cancer patient and I’m grateful for my wig. My daughter helps me try it on again and proclaims it sits better on my head now I don’t have any hair. She’s good at finding silver linings.

I’ve made the most of feeling okay for the past couple of weeks and this is a bit of a blow, somehow makes the whole thing seem far more real. Every time I look in the mirror, there’s a reminder of what I’m going through. I’ve been away, been enjoying long walks, have managed a glorious bike ride and have been girding my loins for the second round. A phone call from the hospital later, and my hopes are dashed as the nurse tells me they will have to delay the second treatment due to my recent blood test that indicated a low neutrophil count. I try not to catastrophise, but am desperate for my treatment to continue so that I can be finished in time for the summer. Cancer has changed almost every aspect of my life and it’s often hard to believe that my normal life will ever resume. I’ve had to spend so much time learning to live in the present that it’s affected my ability to plan and look forward to the future. I remind myself that the flip side of the scariness of impermanence means that the difficult things pass too. I readjust and Google what I can do to help raise my white blood cells….