Birthdays, fun days and hospital bays...

Hello everyone,

Just a quick blog post before the next round of toxic nasties tomorrow (5/6 *Wa hoooo). I want to start this post by wishing Madre a very HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! Unfortunately we had to get up very early today and spend all morning in hospital whilst I had my second loading dose of Herceptin. I also woke up this morning not feeling one hundred percent. This is not ideal and I really hope I am just tired and this little tickle of a cough doesn't get any worse. So poor Madre has not had the best of birthdays, especially as I cannot say I have been the best of company! I did however manage to bake her a cake last night. We just had a little birthday tea party and I'm happy to announce that the cake went down a treat (*phew, never made a coffee and walnut cake before).

Over the last few days I have been out for some lovely meals, seen some friends and been to the cinema. Nothing that exciting really, but I have had a nice time. I also took my pink wig on a little outing and two strangers complimented my hair colour!

Recently I seem to have found laughs in some, weird and wonderful ways. ***Be warned most of the following stories involve toilet related humour.

I mentioned I went to the cinema recently, after the film ended I went to the Ladies. I went to wash my hands and put my rucksack down on the side. As I returned from using the hand-drier to collect my bag I discovered, much to my amusement, that I had left the stupid thing under the automated soap dispenser and it was COVERED in pink, sloppy, sickly smelling soap. Great. Well done Laura. Who's a clever girl?

Same day, different toilet (it's drinking all this water in preparation for Thursday's toxic nasties). This time I was in a massive Tesco. As I went to leave the ladies, a woman in one of the cubicle genuinely said OUT LOUD 'aaah, that feels better'. No word of a lie, she announced to the whole bathroom that after emptying her bowels she now felt better. GROSS. I did NOT want/need to know this. Then, as I was walking out of the Ladies past the Gents, I saw an old man trying to take his trolley into the Gents with him. He couldn't fit it through the door. I think he was a bit confused! I wanted to laugh until I saw that the only thing he had in said trolley was his walking stick. Why he felt the need to take both the trolley and the walking stick into the toilet with him I will never know, but it made me feel a bit sad for him.

Today, as I mentioned earlier I had my second bout of Herceptin.

I also had the misfortune of being sat in between two mentally challenged patients. One insisted on telling me, every nurse, every other patient and every accompanying family member about his diarrhoea. I mean, really? Of all the side effects to chat about to people you don't know he chose that one? So I spent nearly 4 hours listening to poo chat. Fabulous. Just what I wanted. I forgot to bring with me a book/magazine/iPad/any form of entertainment and so I had no escape from him. To my left was an elderly gentleman who's wife had dropped him off for treatment and then once he was all set up, left him to it, who also wanted to talk to me. At the beginning I felt sorry for him because he must of been a little lonely, but after 2 hours of talking to him, I understood why his wife had disappeared. Unfortunately he, not unlike the poo man, liked to tell the same story over and over and over and over again. Normally, I could have coped with this and would have felt a bit sorry for him, however I really wasn't feeling well. Originally I had planned to use my hospital visit to take advantage of the reclining chairs and have a little nap. To make matters worse I couldn't even call upon Madre for moral support as she was hooked on whatever book she, unlike me, had remembered to bring with her and as it was her birthday I thought I'd let her get away with it!

In other news, this is what I have been wearing this week..

Toxic nasties tomorrow, can't believe I only have two left. Soon I hope to do a few posts on chemotherapy tips, beauty products I recommend for use during treatment and essentials to have to hand before starting treatment. Until then...

Love you long time. X

The evolution of a new species...

Hello strangers. I'm sorry for my lack of blogging but I've been busy recovering from the latest round of toxic nasties, which unfortunately went and got me real good. Today, for the first time in 7 days, I finally shed my pyjamas and replaced them with clothes. Actual clothes. Yes, I know this may not seem like an achievement for the average mortal, but for me this was a big leap along the road to recovery. I also left the house for the first time too! I walked to a friends house, yes I may only have sat on a sofa there instead, but I still LEFT THE HOUSE!!! Let me fill you in on what I have been up to since my last post...

Before the last round of the toxic nasties I had my first herceptin treatment which was fine.

I spent a lovely 9hrs in the hospital but thanks to some great company and day time television the day went pretty quick, even if we were delayed starting because of phlebitis in my arm. My only real complaint stems from my neighbouring patient's choice of lunchtime refreshment. A hospital prepared prawn sandwich (bleurghhhh as if I didn't feel sick enough already) and a packet of crisps, which she ate more loudly than I ever thought was humanly possible, EVER.

On Thursday evening I debuted my brown wig at a fundraiser for the local pre-school. I had the best time ever mainly due to the company I kept and the evenings entertainment (provided by a fellow guest's drunken behaviour). The less said about it the better, however let me just say it involved a napkin folding competition.

The next day involved more of this..

And then the next week all I did was this..

Although even that might be a slight lie, as in fact I only made it to the sofa yesterday!
The toxic nasties really did get me good. I told everyone that I was no longer human and had actually evolved into an EMUPO. For those of you unfamiliar with the creature that is the emupo, an emupo is a cross between an emu and a hippo. Why had I evolved into this spectacular creature you may ask? Well, I was so tired I effectively lost the use of my arms (so felt like an emu) and my bones hurt so much I could barely move (like a wallowing hippo). Hence the emupo was born. Madre was acting Zoo keeper and kept me well watered and drugged, and life sort of just plodded on until finally yesterday I was able to make a move from my pen (bedroom), downstairs to the sofa. Madre went back to work and in came my new nurse in the form of my friend Jess. She followed Madre's written instructions including "make her drink at least one drink every 2 hours, no matter what she says" and we got through the entire Season 1 box set of Homeland, which by the way is WELL worth a watch for those of you who haven't seen it.

In other news, I am having serious hair withdrawal symptoms and when I say serious I mean it. I have proper issues and major hair envy. Tonight I spent the entire duration of bath time fashioning hair styles out of bubbles. Yes, that's right I made bubble wigs. I have never pretended to be normal. Please don't judge me. I'm blaming the chemo messing with my brain.

Love you long time. X

Party Time!

Hello, hello. Where to start? I have so much to tell you all.

I have been a very busy baldy the last few days. My little sister came to visit which was so nice. We had a lovely time together eating yummy food, including a chicken pie which she very kindly and expertly topped with pastry boobs and the Coppafeel! Logo. 

What can I say. My sister's a LEGEND

Credit has to go to Madre too for making the pie.

What a trouper! Our time together was cut slightly short by a Sunday night hospital trip (rubbish). It turned out I was okay, I didn’t have an infection (woop woop), but the toxic nasties had escaped my vein and done some damage to my arm muscle (ouchies).

Yesterday we had the big fundraiser for Coppafeel! at The Winking Prawn. My oh my what a night! It was everything I wished for and more. I was completely overwhelmed by the amount of people that showed up, the amount of money raised (nearly £5000) and the amount of love and support I received. I have to give some shout outs…

A MASSIVE thank you to Lucy, Jane, Christine, Mark and Lorenzo for organising it all.

To every member of staff that worked it (for free would you believe).

 

To anyone who donated raffle prizes, food, drink etc.

And finally to every single person that bought a ticket and showed up. I can’t believe how many of you there were. I’m sorry I didn’t get round to meeting and thanking you all personally. But I did try my best to circulate!!

Now I'm sure you are all desperate to know what I wore to this lovely event and how I accesorised my beautiful bald head. Well let me tell you..

I wore a PINK wig :) with a hairband, to disguise the fake parting and make it look more like real hair. Pink lipstick was an absolute must. (I wore MAC Candy Yum-Yum).

Me with said pink hair and lippie

I also wore some (*ahem) BEAUTIFUL SUPER AMAZING pink shoes :)

Photo courtesy of my friend Jess

Now for the fun part, THE PHOTOS. Below is a selection of my favourite snaps of the night to show those of you who couldn’t make it what you missed out on…

BOOB CAKE!

Me and the Lovely Lucy

Coppafeel!'s number one fans!

Coppin' a feel at the end of the night!

See I'm not the only one with a love for crazy headgear!

What a CUTE Coppafeel! fan

***BEAUTY ALERT

In beauty news I had a bit of a spree in MAC the other day so hopefully sometime over the next few days I will be posting a make up how to video/blog. For now I thought I would tell you all about my favourite new purchase. The Diorshow Art Pen. I’ve always liked liquid eyeliner, but sometimes struggled with applying it because the length of the brush handle in ones I’ve had before has been so short. My new lovely eyeliner has been a revelation. Not only is it super easy to apply, it is also highly pigmented (unlike others I’ve used before) and has GREAT staying power. It survived the few tears I shed last night with ease, yet was easy to remove once the partying was over. Well worth the pounds I spent. £££

To finish, here is a photo of me at the end of the night when the wig came off. (Notice all my make up, eyeliner included is still perfectly in place).

Bald is still beautiful

Love you long time. X