CURIOSITY

I remember when Maddy was 7 she came back from school with a sore armpit. When she got in all she kept saying was how uncomfortable it was. We had a look and noticed a lump. “It’s only a gland” we told her and it’ll go away in a day or so. I wasn’t at all worried but for some reason I picked up the iPad, went to Google, and then searched for 7 year old lump under armpit. It didn’t matter if I wasn’t worried before because by the time I had finished searching I was terrified. Why had I just searched that?? I just pushed it aside and carried on. The next morning the first thing I did was check Maddy’s armpit and to my relief it was fine. Lump all gone. The internet can be a crazy tool sometimes.

Jill (our cancer nurse) rang yesterday and spoke to Sam. She wanted to find out how she was doing after the LNB procedure. The results for this usually takes 10 days to come through, however, they are trying to rush these through. This way we can get them on Wednesday when we see the chemotherapy consultant. If not we will have to wait until the following Wednesday.

Sam is becoming more and more anxious as the reality of chemotherapy kicks in. The result is that she’s starting to want more info and, to be honest, who can blame her. She doesn’t necessarily want to find out more (ignorance is bliss and all that) but the curiosity is becoming unbearable.

She’s been a bit down today. She’s in a lot of pain, not sleeping very well and her head is spinning because of the whole situation. She’s also feeling a bit useless because she can’t pick up Charlie or Rosie. She’s dreading losing her hair. Not so much her hair on her head but more her eyelashes and eyebrows. She’s been told that it’s too late in the day to have any kind of make up tattoo done as this won’t heal in time for the chemo. She’s also been told that she can’t have false eyelashes because they would have to be stuck directly on the skin and that doesn’t agree with the chemo. She read online that there was one lady who lost her eyelashes during chemo, grew them back, then lost them again during radiotherapy. She’s obviously been searching for more info online but I get the feeling instead making her feel better it’s making her feel worse.

“Do you know you lose all your nails during chemotherapy?”

“Yeah. You lose all of them. Fingernails and toenails. It’s on the Internet”

I have to be honest with you, I don’t know if this is true or not. I learnt my lesson the last time.