I went into work today to talk to personnel about a phased return if I don’t do chemotherapy and radiotherapy. As decisions go, I’d say I’m 95% against mainlining a chemical cocktail that is so toxic the nurses administering it have to wear special gloves as it would burn their skin if they accidentally spilt some on themselves. It’s not an attractive prospect. 

Then I hung out with my A2 Lit students who were ostensibly meant to be writing their coursework but were instead doing what they always do and winding themselves and me up. I have missed them. I’d like to go back to work soon and make like a normal person with a normal life, even though at the moment it’s extremely difficult to imagine picking up that baton. 

But more than anything I want to get on and have the baby Nate and I were planning and stop living under a cloud of what-ifs. I’m making a concerted effort to generally live a healthier life style. Alcohol is out – tofu, white fish and chicken are in. I’ve acquired a juicer through a friend of my mum’s and will be experimenting with a variety of raw vegetable concoctions in the forthcoming weeks in an attempt to naturally boost my immune system. Daytime Yoga and Pilates will tick the exercise quota, and Reflexology and Reiki will fulfill the relaxation requirements recommended by both medical and holistic approaches to well being. I have booked on to a complementary course at the Penny Brohn Cancer Care Centre in Bristol that aims to help you adjust your lifestyle to give  you the best possible outcome, either along side conventional medicine or entirely holistically. And I am going on a relaxation and healthy retreat in April at the The Bhukti Mukti Ashram in Emsworth.

No. I am not going to become a total hippy and start rearranging my bedroom so the sun rises over my head, although that does sound appealing if I happened to be lying on a beach after an all night party. I do, however, need to make lifestyle adjustments that mean that I am in the ultimate position to be in that 61% who don’t get a secondary cancer. Nate said to me the other day ‘You don’t have cancer anymore, you had cancer’ and while I’d like to say I 100% agree – Positive Mental Attitude and all that – I can’t deny that the pain in my left ribs and the persistent cough I’ve had for three weeks occasionally make me terrified I’ve got lung cancer. Or bone cancer. And that vague lack of concentration I’m constantly feeling is more than likely a brain tumour…

This fear is something that doesn’t go away even if you do the chemo. I know this because I know people who have done it, been sent off without so much as a full body CT scan and a letter of reassurance that they have no sign of cancer anywhere in their body, and then have to live with the same fear of secondary cancers than if they hadn’t had the chemo. And in a way, the cancer ‘system’ is designed to keep that fear alive. God forbid you should be thinking positively about your health and the future when (as my personnel manager told me) you are classified as disabled once you’ve been diagnosed until you get the all clear – five years after your first tumour, provided nothing dark and sinister metastasises anywhere else, in which case, five years after that. And so on.

Well, that’s positive. And it will definitely help with the night terrors about the pain in that area roughly where my liver probably is or the fact that if I don’t get pregnant on the first try I might have ovarian cancer. Which is why I am switching horse burgers for tofu. Not because I am opposed to eating horse, it’s just another ungulate like a cow or a pig, and meat is not murder, it’s fucking tasty. But it is full of crap. The way livestock is fed and what it is fed on is not conducive to the all new improved immune system I am aiming for. Especially the antibiotics. It’s also about taking control when everything is beyond my control. If I am able to help myself a little bit by juicing some carrots and raw beetroot then I should do that. It’s got to be healthier that sitting on the internet and Googling bone cancer symptoms anyway.