Its been 20 days since it was confirmed that I have breast cancer, 28 days since I first knew on a gut level, looking at the radiologists face during the biopsy.

What I’ve learned so far:

• Always trust doctors who look like ISIS leaders.
• Clearly, not how to stop the double line spacing in this text – aha – I just did by adding bullets. Bullet points to qualify.
• How to say hello, then automatically take off my top and bra. I hear you all, hardly new behaviour, yes, I had loads of practise…shall we continue?
• How to ask for help in a way I never have before. I have found screaming hysterically seems to work wonders in supermarkets and things like that
• How to ask for help from my friends – and how my friends have stepped up to the mark, crossed the mark and in fact have left the mark far behind
• How the phrases ‘you have to listen/be nice to me/pay attention to me (delete as applicable) because I have cancer’ have provided me with endless amusement. Not sure about anyone else, but hey, I have cancer…humour me 😉
• How to cry every day. In fact, I’ve got so good at it, sometimes I cry twice a day.
• Homerton hospital are a bunch of dicks. Big time. All of them. The whole hospital.
• Royal Marsden, from one visit, are streets ahead – in information, caring and apparently generally giving a shit in a real way
• How not to muddle up the words ‘grade’ and ‘stage’ in breast cancer. I do not have Stage 3 breast cancer, I have Stage 2, so I learned yesterday. Did I mention Homerton are dicks?
• The Man. I haven’t learned him, I found him. However, I learned how to let myself be held in a way I didn’t think possible over the last 9 days.
• Apparently I won’t lose my tits or my hair. Cold caps seem to be the way forwards – will let you guess for which.
• What I will have to learn, quickly….how to embrace 6 months of chemo. It goes against every fibre of my being, yet I know deep down I must do it. And if I am going to do it, then I need to embrace it if I want to heal.
• How there appears to be no escape from Amman. And how cancer has changed me #33 – I have come to like Amman. And quiet zones on trains. Sigh.
• Looking forwards, how I see so clearly that this will fundamentally change me on many levels. And how I have to let it do so if I want to heal. And how full of shit I can be at times.