I had another trip to the hospital today, more bloody blood tests, a chat with my chemo nurse, a Covid test and my implant. So many appointments spread over the day. In-between appointments I went to the Focus centre, it’s a service for cancer patients and WOW.

I came to the centre just to pick up a parking permit but was given a Welcome Pack, recipe books, information booklets and I came out awash with information.

TIP – make sure you get a parking permit – car parking at hospitals is exorbitantly expensive  

The Centre was brilliant, I was given a book to monitor my chemo symptoms, advice numbers for counselling, a referral to the Citizens Advice Bureau about financial support. Whilst there I got chatting to this amazing lady, she said she was a regular at the Centre as she was on her sixth cycle of chemotherapy and that actually the treatment can be a right laugh, with patients interacting and chatting, nurses dancing to the radio and the opportunity to ring a bell at your very last treatment. 

I started to get a little optimistic, maybe chemo won’t be so bad – especially if I get to meet people. I love my friends and family to death but sometimes I want to talk about cancer with people who have it, the opportunity to know rant/ rave/ laugh – whilst everyone in the country at this time is miserable with lockdown, my life is cancer – there is little else that I have as a discussion topic because there is fuck all else to do. You also get the sympathetic cancer eyes when you talk with friends, they don’t know how to deal with it and i find (sometimes) you end up supporting them rather than being able to fully offload.

Unfortunately, my experience with chemo was isolating, Covid not only fucked the world, but it zapped any normalcy or humanity of the Chemo process as well – it’s hard enough, but Covid made it really suck and much more isolating.