The rollercoaster is not over, despite me thinking (hoping) and acting like it is many days….

3 weeks post surgery, I could not wear my normal bras. Tried twice and after an hour I would swell, it hurt and I had to take it off. Then I went to John Lewis on Tuesday post wonderful shrink appointment – and they were amazing. The woman looked politely horrified when I mentioned I had tried to wear a normal underwire bra and said to keep well away from them. Of course, nobody like a doctor or nurse had thought to mention this to me…ffs. I then bought 2 bras, one maternity one she recommended, and they are SO comfortable and feel great – much better than wearing none and clearly a huge improvement on the regular ones that hurt. Then I was told that anyone buying bras after breast surgery for cancer doesn’t pay VAT, so I got about £7 off which was really, really lovely. Left there feeling physically better with a bra that fitted (left wearing one of them!) and smiling as they were so bloody kind and helpful.

I can see my eyelashes!!!! Even the bottom ones – its been a very long time since I’ve seen them – and my eyebrows are starting to look like eyebrows and not just 5 o’clock shadow – I honestly cannot tell you how happy that makes me. For the first in what feels like a lifetime, I am starting to see me when I look in the mirror – it is just absolutely amazing.

And I am tearful this morning. I have to leave in around 40 mins to go to the Marsden for my scan and stuff in preparation for radiation. I really, really don’t want to go. I think I have been feeling like its all over and this is a stark reminder that its not yet. I didn’t connect it, but woke up yesterday in the complete horrors after a dream that was one of those that felt incredibly real. I was in Prof Aloof’s office, with The Man and someone else (don’t know who, someone I knew in the dream but couldn’t remember when I woke up) and Prof Aloof was telling me that they had found traces of cancer in my lungs, bones and some in my brain – tiny amounts. He was very nonchalant about it, I was stunned, and I couldn’t see or touch The Man – the other person was sitting in between us and blocking my view – overwhelming sense of not being able to reach him and feeling alone. Then I was in a room somewhere else in the hospital talking to another medic, but I was alone again and couldn’t find The Man. It was horrible – I was in complete shock, gutted and numb at the same time, feeling totally alone – with that overriding feeling of panic because I couldn’t reach The Man.

I only twigged this morning that it was related to me going for this scan this morning. And going through all the scans in Amman last year after my diagnosis when I was alone. That fucking terror of waiting to see if it had spread or not.

No, of course this is not the case now, I know that intellectually. But clearly not emotionally just yet. Had I realised before just now I would have arranged this differently…however, at least feeling the panic right now and will have a bit of time to process it before I get there. Preferable to it hitting me when I was in the sodding machine having the scan.