I’m not going to win any prizes :-(

Before I explain that title in detail. I will update you on chemo hell. It was 1.40 am in the morning and I have to try to sleep. The chemo upsets your sleep pattern so ‘it’s all perfectly normal’ as my dear sister in law Sarah would say. Brushing your teeth is a nightmare, so you have to rinse quickly under the hot tap before the water gets too hot. Colder water running down onto your hand starts the pins and needles off again and once they start it’s awful cos you can’t use your hands. Then undressing becomes a problem as you now struggle to get undressed. I get into bed as quietly as I can so I don’t wake Steve. I lie down but then the shooting pain starts in my head on the left hand side. I’m holding my head, my body aches, my arm is sore where the chemo went in and you just feel so alone in this, scared and trapped. Unlike last time I at least know that it will fade as the days go by. That’s why seeing Karen yesterday meant so much to me as no one, unless you have been through it can really empathise.

Karen was so ill on cycle one that she didn’t complete it. She said to me yesterday that it was hard to describe how bad she was. I said that she didn’t need too. I reminded her of the text she sent me. She said that she felt so ill that she just wanted to die. I should think myself lucky and I do. I can cope, if you can call it that with the drugs. 40% of people who start chemo drop out, a shocking statistic.

I wake it 6.30, everyone still asleep. I manage feeding the animals and get coffee, my usual 1/2 biscuit starts of the jaw ache off. Pins and needles in my hands, ‘there my bloody gloves gone’, now I feel angry as I didn’t clear away from tea properly last night, no nice cups left, dishwasher not put on and I can’t find my glove 🙁 after a while a manage to get a coffee and a fag and sit in the chemo gazebo.

I receive a lovely message from someone in the Midlands who reads my blog who is also 47 and attended the Buckpool School. This school can be seen from the back of my moms house. We exchange familiar names from our past childhood days. It always makes me my feel good to know that my ramblings are read by others and I’m actually helping people. I also get messages left on my blog itself. Now this really excites me as it’s a power thing, let me explain. I get an email if someone leaves a comment. I have to approve the comment first before it goes into the blog. Once I approve you then you can post up anytime and it goes up there instantly. I get a lovely message from Liz, someone from BHS who is a first time message leaver so has to be approved, thanks for the power trip Liz 🙂 Karen and the lovely Rita also leave lovely comments. Rita is my angel who burns down the church in candles every Sunday for me.

I also receive a message from Dawn. I ask her for help. Calling my cancer Harry seems wrong now as he is gone, along with a 3rd of my bowel. Harry was called Harry because he was in my Cecum. That’s why it’s ‘Harry’ after Harry Seycombe, now you have to be of a certain age to know who Harry Seycombe was. It’s actually Harry’s offspring who are trying to take over my body in any organ they can get to. We decide a play on words is a good idea and now my cancer is going to be called ‘Harribabes’ after the sweets Harribos, sorted and happy with that.

Steve and Rebecca wake and I need my drug lord to leap into action as I’m not feeling so good. 6 chemo tablets later and toast for me. I try to walk up stairs to get dressed but my legs are so sore it’s a real struggle but no one see’s me so that’s okay.  I do try hard to hide the pain from them as much as I can as I see that look in their eyes. Hard to describe it really, just despair I think. Mom has called from her holiday, she has read the blog and tells me off for not being honest with her about how I’m feeling. She also was nosy enough to read the rude post from the other day, mom’s hey! I knew she would but I didn’t expect her to be reading it out loud to all her friends on holiday with her. Apologies to the ‘Scilly Six’ but she was warned.

So why is my post called ‘No prizes for me’ – It goes back to Thursday when I was working with my boss. He said “how are your kids coping with all this?” I must have looked blank “I don’t know is the real answer”. I felt awful. I worry about Steve, my mom and Richard and Rebecca of course I do. I think that because they are young they don’t really know how serious this could be. I haven’t asked them how they’re coping, how bad is that?

I picked up Rebecca from work on Thursday and we took Molly out for a walk, so I asked her how she is coping. She says that she doesn’t sleep well, she worries about me and she listens to music which makes her sad. She gets over emotional and cries when she doesn’t need to cry. She talks to people at work and her boyfriend Josh but she doesn’t talk to me. She reads my blog and of course I have written ‘warts and all’ in there, stuff that us moms would normally never share with our kids. She was upset when she read the post about what would happen if I didn’t survive, what would happen to her, as she lives with us. It was good to talk to her but I haven’t appreciated how sad and lonely she feels. She buys me flowers every week and thinks about practical ways in which to help. She has just brought me a plastic cup with a straw as I find drinking from a glass a problem. She had to cut my food for me last night at dinner. She does the ironing when my mom isn’t here and kisses me on the cheek whenever she goes out now. I asked if Richard had ever spoken to her about it? “No’ was the reply and she looked so sad but then again she admitted that she hadn’t tried to speak to him either. Why can’t we talk to each other I wonder, really talk?

So I brought Rebecca a hoody, well Steve had to go and get it, to say thank you and I’m sorry for not being the mom I should be sometimes. Here is Rebecca getting the hoody and she will kill me for posting this up, but hey that’s what mom are for, maximum embarrassment 🙂

Richard is like me in personality. I think he hides emotion away. He doesn’t live with us due to being in the Army so he doesn’t see the day to day stuff that Rebecca does. I text him everyday wherever he is, even if I don’t get a reply. Yesterday I was so consumed with it being chemo day that I forgot he was taking his motorbike test, for the 4th time as he failed the previous 3, for being an idiot as he can ride a bike. I hadn’t remembered he was taking it and when he phoned to tell me he had passed, I just felt awful that I had forgotten, sorry Richard.

So I’m not going to win any mommy awards this year for one and the other award I won’t win is ‘The Times Literary Award’. As moms away Steve has been promoted to Chief Editor. To be fair to him, he never changes what I write, he just improves it with the grammar and spelling (this can take a while). He realises that whilst I won’t win any awards for literary content, this blog has to be from my heart, and it is.

I get another message from a friend in Cyprus who says that my blog really touches her. So you maybe wrong Mr Guy after all lol. These words of encouragement from you all means so much to me, you have no idea how much, so thank you all.

Richard texted me the other day to say he was round a friends house and his wife said “I read your moms blog everyday” Another old school and football friend of his apparently reads it too. Now I think he secretly likes this.

I talked the other day about stuff I had done at work for fun. Our parody of Gangnam Style, we renamed  ‘Retail Style’ was recorded for charity to raise money for the NSPCC. Richard and Rebecca sang it and it was so funny, I actually wet myself laughing at them singing it. I was heart broken when I received a letter from Head Office to say I couldn’t put it on the internet, ever. So I can’t ever show you that to make you smile. However in October last year we did a parody of Michael Jackson’s Thriller, called Thriller Christmas. Now this was made just for fun at the time and I couldn’t ever show it as I don’t think that our previous owner would have liked it, but he sold us for £1 and therefore I’m sure he wouldn’t mind now. So I’ll attach it for you to enjoy. Plus it’s only 25 weeks and 6 days until Christmas, just saying guys!

My step daughter loved our ‘Harlem Shake’ video so I hope you all enjoy our ‘Thriller Christmas’ shared fun and memories with a great team. I have had to edit the orginal video to remove anything that may cause offence ;-). The purpose of sharing this video is that we did it just for fun and as a team building exercise.

Now I’m thinking what else can I embarrass them with ha ha. I have many more where the last two came from. So I won’t win ‘Mom of the Year’ or The Times Literary Award’ but I may win the ‘Oh god what has she posted up now award’ lol Be afraid Richard as I still have the ‘Lucky pants dance’ lol lol lol