So He Says...

Since my fiancé (how grown up) pretty much has his own fan base these days, I'm posting this guest blog even though it's been lost in the depths of inaccessible malfunctioning hard drive for the last month or so, along with all my photos and iTunes. Lesson learnt: back up back UP.

Much like the hair thing I had issues about how DadJokes would deal with me wonky boobed. I'm sure this is a common wobble among women having mastectomy's so I asked him to write about it and hopefully be a bit helpful. Of course after the lovely response from the hair piece I was never sure if he was saying what he thought we wanted him to. Turns out there was a marriage proposal on the cards from way before then (cheeky bugger been planning it for 6 months!), proving men do actually think this way, so I'm satisfied that women with one boob can still expect diamonds. LOVE I meant unconditional love, of course...

To be quite honest, I wonder if anyone really thinks about what the other halves go through when it comes to a horrible situation like this. Quite rightly so too, after all, this is much more about the ‘victim’ (oops she told me I’m not to use that word, sorry).
I however, think of the grief of the person with the patient as my mind wanders sitting in busy waiting rooms. I can fully relate to the anguish on their faces and am pretty confident I can read the thoughts and questions spilling out of their heads. In this case I felt I could read them like tangible sentences.


So I’m in the waiting room, waiting to hear if Soph would lose her breast, and I’m thinking: What can I possibly say to make her prepare for this? What will I say to her after surgery? Pre-cancer life was happy happy, will it ever be the same for us again?? I’m sad for her, it’s so unfair, but is it wrong for me to feel like it’s my loss too? It's a tough one. I never really thought it would come to this and in the end I decided that Yes I’m scared for what’s coming next, but I will be strong.


It’s impossible to imagine what it feels like to lose a part of your body like that. Especially a part that makes a woman so very much a woman. And dare I say it, a part lusted after by the large proportion of the opposite sex since puberty – that I do know about. I’d imagine this is a big part of what makes it upsetting for Sophie and it's that very thought that helps me know how to remain strong and be supportive throughout.
I recall standing bedside as Sophie had a small metal marker inserted into the core of the tumour, so when the chemo shrunk the bastard completely, doctor's would know exactly where it had been.
I felt semi-confident that the long treatment, albeit hard work, would eradicate this mess and the mastectomy fear would be nothing but a bad dream. As you followers of this blog will know - the Chemo did not quite do its job, the tumour was an aggressive Grade 3, so the inevitable decision 8 months down the line was to remove the offending boob. F*ck.

I think by the time the surgery had come around, we were both looking forward to getting the alien out of there, desperate to in fact. Our strong desire to get rid of a whole breast should give you some idea of how painful this whole saga had been. It was going to be a relief.

I continually spluttered as much positivity about the actual deed as I possibly could, I wanted her to be assured that there was no shame in being left asymmetric, that it was medically the most positive action to date and that I loved her and found her beautiful no matter what. In fact, I was the first person to step up and take a look at it moments after she had woken up post op. "Ah ha" I said with a smile "it's so neat and clean and tidy, well done, it's over, it's all out".

In truth, I was preparing myself to have to lie about it, but honestly it didn't faze me. There were times I worried it would, but happily and genuinely it really didn't. The sheer relief that she had woken up from the surgery seeming fairly calm and collected was insurmountable. I’d expected a breakdown so monumental it would require roadside assistance.

 I hope Sophie believes me when I say I don’t see her any differently to how I did before. On the contrary she’s a far stronger and more inspiring girlfriend, with a greater perspective on life.
An insensitive colleague of mine recently said ‘if it was me I'd feel like a freak.’ It was only because I know there’s nothing further from the truth that I didn’t jump over the desk and rip off one of his testicles to see who the freak was then. Don’t think HR would have taken too kindly to that though…

 So, I can happily say we are on the way back to some sort of normality now, in fact the other day, I caught myself singing out loud to cheesy 80's music. Club Tropicana drinks are freeeeee….. Not remarkable until you consider the fact I haven’t done that for 8 months. Meh, the mastectomy is the mastectomy, it will always be there for us but it really doesn't get in the way, quite literally of course!
The two of us are lucky that we can talk about our thoughts, fears, insecurities and underwear needs, so she’ll always have someone to help her clear the hurdles that come her way.

 I will love her whatever happens, should she one tit or not... sorry, want it or not.

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The Hair Thing - By The Boy

Hold onto your (bobble) hats, pass the sick bucket, take some anticipatory ibuprofen for the rib ache you'll have by the time you reach the end: My other half, DadJokes has produced this contributory blog post - at my pushy insistence - to give his side of 'The Hair Thing and How it Happened'.

I insisted because I wish I'd had a bit of insight into how the him-indoorses of the world would feel at

having their old girlfriends swapped in for balder versions. Then I wouldn't have wasted my money on headscarves and my time worrying about it so much.

So here it is. I can only apologise for the terrible jokery - but now you see where the moniker came from, and you can sympathise with me as you wish.

Although we were both physically in the room at the initial diagnosis, I think I may have been there more mentally than my girlfriend, ever-so-slightly. There were so many questions jumbled in my head I didn’t know what to ask first, so I tried these….

Does she have to have Chemotherapy?

How long does it last?

What do you mean 6 months? 6 months??

Is it every day? Can she stay at home?

And Sophie asked... Am I going to lose my hair?

Am I going to lose my hair! The poor sapling, she was genuinely worried about that. I now know with the wisdom of hindsight why she freaked out about this, as opposed to my ‘hair shmair’ stance. But for me as her significant other (sorry always wanted to use that description since Del Boy introduced Cassandra as such in Only Fools), it was a lot further down the priority list let me tell you.

I’ll be honest, it didn't even occur to me to ask - not because hair isn't important to me, believe me an overdue cut of my own gives me sleepless nights - I simply didn't place any importance on it in this particular context.

Now when Sophie asked me to write ‘the boyfriend's perspective on the hair loss thing’, I duly obliged, but I warned her it might not be quite what she wanted, because quite frankly my dear, I didn’t give a damn!

I actually found it quite hurtful when her mother took me aside to tell me Sophie was convinced I wouldn’t find her attractive anymore, that she was especially worried about bedtime when she couldn’t hide it from me.

I’m going to admit that I had a little weep about that to myself. I took it to mean I was comfortable with my insecurities around her, and perhaps it wasn’t reciprocated. (What? Don’t tell the lads…)

Of course it wasn’t as simple as that and we’ve talked about it since. Losing your hair is a bit more than merely an insecurity.  To me only a bit, because my point is, it doesn’t matter to me in the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t matter to me on Sophie (or off!), so its hard to grasp how much it can matter to someone worrying about what I’m going to think about it. Phew. Am I making sense? I guess I’ll never truly understand what it’s like to be told that for the next year you'll be bald (I sincerely hope).

So fast forward to the first cut. Sophie was naturally nervous but I’d done my very best to remain canny about the whole hair thing since the start, I could see we needed a bit of canny.

Claire's haircut was very good, mid-length and wavy. I thought it looked ace but casting my mind back now, I’m not sure if I was 100% honest with my enthusiastic compliments. The cut was great don't get me wrong, but I just loved her long hair. I haven’t told Sophie this, so erm maybe a public apology for white lying. Sorry babe, I was trying to make you feel better during an obvious trauma.

It was only about a week later when she called me with a wobbly voice. “Kenna is coming round to crop me today.”

I had the thoughts;  Short short hair? Will she like that? Will I like that?’ Kenna is a long time friend of Sophie’s, I don’t know him so well, but I hear he is a fantastic hairdresser. This was going to be interesting. I can admit now that for a split second I thought about his Hackney roots. Was it going to be an uber trendy haircut from the depths of Broadway Market? (for the uninitiated, a place in London where you are not worth a dime if your jeans aren't rolled up to your knees and you are not covered in multi coloured tattoo's and a handlebar tash)

Turns out it really was amazing and very sexy and I was surprised how much I loved it. But then again I might be a touch biased -  if you look as pretty as my missus does, even I could give her a good haircut.....

Yep… you guessed it.

Not so long later and Sophie was literally pulling her hair out (nb. I have a thing about the correct usage of the word literally. Here is a perfect example, please take note Mr.Jamie Redknapp and Ms.Katie Selby).

Quite frankly she was a mess, so I had to step up and take charge of the situation. "I'm taking it off, you will be fine and you will make it look beautiful. Trust me. I will think so no matter what, but I will call you Garibaldi at some points in the future" (um..yup..that actually got a laugh. And I do it too!).

It didn't take long. Whilst I sheared, we cried (yes, again), and Sophie doesn’t believe me when I say that I didn’t really freak out, even secretly, at the Vin Diesel look. Rather I was sincerely moved by how she was feeling and it hurt me to see her cry.

At the time I was thinking she could pull off rasta dreads, let alone a GI Jane crop, but it took me a while to get her to look in the mirror.

I will say this though. It felt very real now because there was finally a visual element to this bugger.

A couple of months have passed now, the love of my life is a baldy, and thankfully she has not once felt the need to try and hide it from me.

I try to greet her with a new name every time I come in the door. Richard O ‘Brien, Uncle Festa, Kojak, Terry Tibbs, Egg head, Right Said Fred, Grant Mitchell (any further suggestions, please comment below – I’m running thin) (like Sophie’s hair) (Sorry).

She just looks like Soph to me. I sometimes even forget that she has long hair (in the cupboard). Just this morning when she was all dressed and ready for work looking a gazillion dollars, I kept shouting her to come back in the room ‘‘let me take another look at cha’’. She looked amazing with this lovely red hair and with eyebrows and high heels – I guess I’m just so unfazed by the bald version it’s actually a welcome shock to catch a glimpse of the old hot one every so often!

Hair's to more of that caper then.

A Chemo Room With A View

I just spent my entire Monday in one, so I thought, for the uninitiated, a little ode to the place that makes me better (although it doesn't make me look, OR feel better, that's for sure), was in order.

This is my view, look, there's the boyfriend making me laugh with various medicines, I'm not sure how, but he's very good at it; earning the digital pseudonym 'DadJokes', and accompanies me every time without fail - no mean feat, that is a full 9-5 commitment.






There's my parents arriving,






again, they schlep up to North London from Surrey every time. So we have a little family gathering, where most people seem to come alone. The thing is, forget what you see in the movies, actual chemotherapy day is not so bad. You don't feel sick at the time (I never have anyway), you see some lovely familiar nurses and doctors, you get a lot of FREE lorazepam (to be taken responsibly of course)(and not to be joked about in blog form, but how to make a chemotherapy post slightly amusing? There you go!), and your family get to do their bit, where mostly they feel pretty useless.






Notice also I get a bed, in favor of an upright chair - bonus- since I have port-a-cath, which basically means my arm veins get spared in favor of an accessible plastic friend that sits between my ribs, so, after initial installation operation, the whole thing is pretty painless too.

Some advice though, kicked off by Nina Thompson, aka Nina Balleriana, who read my blog and offered this up:

"The day before chemo make sure you eat...ALOT...and .....when you feel like crap and can't concentrate on reading or TV I find listening to audio books really helps..!!"

She's right, I have an overly active imagination according to my own mum, which has resulted in anticipatory and association sickness. Basically anything I eat on chemotherapy day, I can never bear the thought of again (so far), since I feel pukesome afterwards. This has knocked out turkish food, (heave) pearl barley, (eurgh) and chickpea curry (previously loved and lost). It's like the salami that gave you that food poisoning episode association, but every three weeks. Haven't discovered how to overcome this yet, aside from living off mint tea and carrot sticks for a day. Does the waist line wonders though!

Any tips on this and other chemotherapy advice for the masses, please comment below, I'm still learning too...


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