N is for normal

A normal day followed by an abnormal night...

There were moments, actually, longer periods of time today (well, yesterday, as it's now 3.50am) where I had completely forgotten about having cancer; I was going about my business like everyone else, focused on jobs to do and places to go - I had a mission other than avoiding pain. The day started off with some administration, invoicing, emailing etc. getting ready for my 4th session of radiotherapy (I did say there were moments of normality!), cycling into the city, going to meet a student for a coffee, chatting about someone else's problems, wandering around a shop and looking at clothes, going back home via the supermarket, hoovering, cleaning the bathroom and then teaching a private lesson in the evening.

Most of my activities today were 'normal'; things I would have done BC (before cancer) and while I was in "Bijenkorf" I had a fleeting moment of realisation that this was normal life - I popped in to get a birthday card and ended up wandering around the clothes department, vaguely looking at things but without real goal or necessity. As I was aimlessly browsing, I watched a couple of women who were trying tops on, giving each other advice and having a very earnest discussion about the value for money and difference in sizing between here and the USA (they were American... can you guess the comments?!). Their chat was so serious in tone, yet so mundane and meaningless, at least from my perspective and that was when I was jolted back to my CAP (Cancer in progress) reality.

What is normal anyway? This morning, as I swung my legs up onto the table, ready for my radiotherapy, pulled my underwear down to just below my knees and allowed the radiotherapists to move me around by my hips and knees, I realised this had become normal for me. Within only 4 sessions there was a routine: I laced my fingers together across my chest, top pulled up to just below my ribcage and stared at the two abstract prints stuck on the ceiling as the machines did their thing, whirring around me and the table clicked itself loudly into position. Three minutes later, I was hitching up my pants and walking back to the changing room exchanging small talk with one of the assistants about the rest of my day.

So, after my hospital appointment, my coffee date with an ex-student, wander around town, supermarket visit, cleaning etc. I had a normal private lesson at home with 3 students. I explained the use of the present perfect, phrasal verbs, the meaning of the word 'arson' (essential vocabulary for everyone!) and focused on error correction and feedback and again, was completely in my BC world of work: English teaching. I loved it. The only

tell-tale sign that everything was not quite right was my voice: I sound like a cross between a teenage boy whose voice is breaking and an old lady with a wobbly, high pitched tone which sometimes fails completely! Losing my voice is really frustrating, especially because the doctor doesn't really know exactly why it has happened and why it isn't getting better.

Watching some TV after my lesson, I also noticed that I had almost zero pain in my leg! This hadn't happened for weeks and I was overjoyed, I could walk, stand, sit in pretty much any position and not feel a twinge or pulse of pain or discomfort. It lasted for a good couple of hours, and then I went to bed....

So now it's 4.15am and I'm awake because of the pain in my leg, which is back with a vengeance. I woke up to the familiar shooting pain stretching from my groin to my knee, a throbbing sensation in my outer thigh, and stiffness, an almost cramp-like feeling in my calf. After what felt like an age lying in bed trying to ignore it, I got up and came downstairs. Actually, since writing this, the pain has subsided - is that due to the nose spray or the distraction of writing .. or a combination of the two?

Well, one thing I am sure about is that being awake and blogging at 4am is no longer necessarily 'abnormal' in my world... even though it clearly should be. I yearn for the normality of just going to bed, sleeping, and being woken up by an alarm clock.