The Girl with the Radiotherapy Tattoos

With this being Cervical Screening Awareness Week (www.jostrust.org.uk/get-involved/campaign/cervical-screening-awareness-week - GO AND HAVE YOUR BLOODY SMEAR TESTS!!) and only 1 week to go until I finally start all my treatment, I thought I should probably write a bit of an update!

There isn't too much to tell really, I have just been a ridiculous emotional mess over the last week or so. I went for my final scan at the Brighton Hospital Cancer Centre nearly 2 weeks ago, and stupidly I went alone, thinking it would just be a quick scan. If I can give one piece of advice to anyone, it would be to NEVER go alone to a cancery appointment. Ever. Because even when you think you're OK and you know what to expect by now and you really don't want to bore your friends and family with yet another dull waiting room, something always comes up and you just need someone to look at, baffled, and say "What the fuck just happened?".

The long delays probably didn't help but sitting alone in the hot, dark, most depressing waiting room I've seen yet was pretty miserable. When I was finally seen an hour later, the very lovely head radiographer was called away during our appointment for some kind of patient emergency. How could anyone be more important than me? Outrageous! (Please don't think I mean that. That hour sat in the waiting room proved that I am one lucky girl, and my situation could be so much worse.) He was called away while we were going through my consent form, and crucially while we were discussing all the side effects of my treatment. I don't know if he was distracted or intentionally by-passed the "infertility" box which had been pre-ticked, but I found that devastating. It was something so awful he didn't even want to discuss it. And him ignoring it just brought light to it. Shit.

He also briefly mentioned the enema I would need to take that day, and every day before my radiotherapy. This is to make sure my bowel is as small as possible, so as little damage as possible is caused by the radio beams. He seemed embarrassed when I obviously looked confused and tears came to my eyes. He quickly realised no-one had told me this would happen, and while in the grand scheme of it all it's nothing major, it's pretty horrific. There was, and won't be, anywhere private to do this so I apologise in advance to anyone who happens to need a wee at the same time as me. There really is no dignity in all this cancer stuff and this appointment was just getting worse.

But wait. There's more. Suddenly I'm called into the scanning room and although everyone was lovely (again), I felt stupidly rushed to get undressed, lie down, put my head here, feet here...

"Are you comfortable?",

"No",

"How about now?",

"Erm, sure",

"OK, so I'm just going to do your tattoos".

Sorry......what now?

My oncologist had mentioned this briefly during my first chat with her at Worthing hospital weeks ago and I hadn't really thought much of it, but suddenly this woman who was overly pedantic about the position of my feet was going to just tattoo me. "They'll just look like little blue black heads". Erm, OK, I guess.

My second piece of advice - if someone is coming at you with a tattoo needle near you nunny, drink first. As in, a shot of something hard. Cos that shit stiiiiiiings. She was in there good, and she was rooting around for much longer than I felt necessary. She then did one on each hip, which were less painful due to the extra chub I've been storing there over the last few months.

These 'blue black heads' look like someone has run at me with a fountain pen. They are awful. Small little freckles I could have dealt with, but ink splodges? They are rubbish. And I find this gut wrenchingly sad. Which is really strange when I absolutely love my scars. I'm proud of those war wounds - they show I went through something horrific and made it out the other side. They are scattered randomly all across my stomach and pelvis - they're a mixture of neat and scruffy, faded and raw, they are a mess but they are awesome. These tattoos are just ugly. They're my first tattoos and I will always have to look at them and know they are just the markers for destroying my body. For making me a failed woman. For changing my life forever. (Cue violins and a slow fade....)

But on the flip side, this now gives me a new project while I spend my days lying on the sofa trying not to vomit - "Find Kate some awesome cover up tattoos". And I invite you all to play! I'm thinking small and silly, with meaning behind it. The family motto "Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to get through life" is a current front runner, along with a little kitty face outline for the ever so delicate lady area. Answers on a postcard people!

So the long and short of it, 3 hours later, I was out of there and crying in my car. It was by far the saddest appointment I've had yet. I think reality had finally kicked in that this was happening. I'm a dab hand at operations and waking up with something else missing (yet still not losing any weight, like some cruel joke!), but knowing I'm about to have poison pumped through my body to destroy all my cells (healthy and cancery) and have radiation beams shot at my reproductive organs, all to attack a cancer that might not even be there, is unknown and scary and really just awful.

Our mini break to Poland the day after my scan was absolutely what the doctor ordered (along with a 6 week supply of enemas). But in the days that followed I really did consider not going ahead. Why was I doing it, when there's nothing to show the cancer is still in my body? What if I go through all of this and it comes back anyway?

But after a week of being in the house alone and crying silly amounts, I got over that and realised that the cancer HAS to be somewhere. It couldn't have got from my cervix to my ovary without leaving a trace of something en route. Being unable to carry a baby doesn't make me any less of a woman than I am now, and so many women struggle with fertility for so many other reasons. Are they any less of a woman? If a man can't have children, does this make him any less of a man? We are not defined by what our bodies can do, but by who we are and how we overcome our 'failings'. So there, cancer!

I'm still an emotional mess, increasingly paranoid and find myself getting upset about very small and unimportant things, but I think that's OK. To be honest it's exhausting being positive all the time, and probably not good for my mental health. This is happening and it's OK to not be OK about it. It is a sad thing, and there are things to grieve, and life really never will be the same. I have never felt so insecure about myself, but that will get better with time. Just stick with me! The countdown is on - in 2 months this will all be over!

And then we will drink. Good Lord, how we will drink!!