Cancer Day 42 / IVF Day 3: I’m a cancer patient :(

I think the fertility treatment side effects are starting to kick in. Or it could just be me. It’s hard to tell but I feel a bit short with people (namely Elliott and Evie) and feel a bit bloated. But going to the park with Monia was lovely. It’s great being around the trees and walking, like nothing is wrong.
I had another session with my hypnotherapist (the one that specialises in cancer patients) and I realised a couple of things during it:

1: I’m scared of having my port put in. I don’t think anything screams ‘I’m a cancer patient!!’ then a port. I had been worried about the chemo. But I can leave the chemo suite and not know anything about what’s happening with me. A port you carry around, it’s installed in your body. It’s part of you for months and months….I’ve tried thinking it could be cool, like part of me is a Borg…but in reality I know that all this crap is going to feel real, going to come crashing down onto me as soon as they install that thing, and then I can’t escape it.

2. The other thing I realised is that I keep picturing myself and I don’t like it. At the end of August, Elliott and I have our second wedding anniversary and we’ve booked a weekend away in Italy. It’s been planned for months, long before my diagnosis. I just have this mental image of me standing on a beach, in my bikini, with one boob bigger then the other, covered in my scars, bald, and broken. Sometimes I picture myself standing there like that but strong but mostly I’m upset because it won’t be me. I feel good right now, I feel like myself and this picture of me in just a short while (end of next month) will be someone else. Someone who’s been through something they never imagined they’d do and it really terrifies me.

Feeling: Terrified