Another eventful few days

My hair has started to fall out.  Not in massive clumps but in more of a moulting dog kind of a way.  I don't really feel too upset about it at the moment as I know that the treatment is actually working.  That has to be a good thing.  I've asked my husband to shave my head this weekend but I might chicken out when I see him with the clippers.  Sweeney Todd comes to mind.

Meditation and the munchies

I went to a meditation and visualisation workshop at the Macmillan Centre the other day.  It was a lovely event run by a beautiful, elegant woman in a lovely floaty dress.  

We did lots of relaxation, hand massages with aromatherapy oils, positive thinking cards, visualisation of blue skies, golden spheres, auras and all that sort of stuff.

It was however a little hard to clear my mind during the morning session. All I could think about was what type of sandwiches we were going to get for lunch. 

Does feeling horrible count as a friend?  Yes, apparently, as it makes you appreciate the good feelings.

Step away from the fizzy sweets

The roof of my mouth has also started to get very sore.  I blame myself though.  I read somewhere that eating fizzy sweets could help with a dry mouth so I went and bought a couple of packets of kola cubes and pear drops.  The sweet but slightly sour taste was heavenly and my tongue was really salivating.  

The only trouble was, I ended up scraping the roof of my mouth with the rough sweets and now it's not healing properly.  I'm having to take a special mouth spray and gel sachets to help prevent my mouth from 'breaking down' and getting ulcers.  The gel is particularly weird.  It needs to be mixed with water, and it feels like I'm rinsing with liquorice flavoured pureed jellyfish.  Not that I've ever tried that, you understand.

The downside of having a sore mouth is that I can't eat anything spicy which includes Indian food, my absolute favourite.  I am gutted.

Not so tai chi

There was an interesting distraction in the tai chi class this week.  As we were exercising, we heard a loud crunch and all dashed to the window to see what had happened.  Two cars had crashed into each other down a side road opposite our class.  A woman appeared to have also tumbled out of one of the cars onto the pavement.  

The incident didn't look too serious but we all gawped and speculated until our teacher nagged us into returning, reluctantly, to our exercise. Luckily there were no punches thrown.  The drivers and bystanders were pretty well behaved too (I bet you saw that joke coming a mile off, eh?). 

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Prayers and angels

'A radiant sunflower'

One day between appointments, I was walking towards the main hospital from the Macmillan Centre when two women stopped me.  They handed me a leaflet about a religious event taking place in Belfast.

One of the women asked me if there was anyone needing any healing who they could pray for.  Being completely selfish I said, 'What about me?  I'm getting cancer treatment.'  'Yes,' they said, 'Can we pray for you now?'  'What NOW?' I was rather taken by surprise as I wasn't expecting them to do it there and then, but they did. 

They stood either side of me, laid their hands on me and and prayed out loud for me.  I admitted to feeling slightly awkward as people were looking at us as they walked past.  I started to relax a little and allowed the waves of positivity wash all over me.  When they finished one of them said, 'Oh, Karen.  You're like a radiant sunflower.  You've now been healed.' 

I'm not especially religious but I did feel quite chuffed.  

'Go for it'

On another occasion, I dropped in to a Macmillan visualisation and meditation session.  It wasn't quite what I expected but nonetheless it was very calming and relaxing. 

Towards the end of the session, the teacher asked us to choose a card from a pack in the way that a magician does.   She then asked us to read out what was on our card.  

Now I've not been particularly into things like guardian angels, but my card actually struck a chord with me.  It said 'Go for it'.  And I think that's what I'm trying to do on this cancer journey. 

I will take any help (within reason!) from anywhere if it gets me through some of the dark days ahead.

Next time...

Starting chemotherapy.

PS

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