All Kinds of Excitement

My laptop came home from the hospital today. It has a new logic board and a new super drive. I thank Jesus and all his fairies that I had the foresight to buy the Apple Care Protection Racket, so all the repairs and parts are covered. If you ever need Mac repairs I recommend Amsys. They collect and deliver.

I drive around to Mayhem Mansions to return the Macbook that Ted so kindly lent me. Smells of exotic cooking waft down the hallway as Hugo hurls himself in a frenzied attack at my ankles. The place is jumping. In the kitchen I find Muttiah, just returned from a long trip home to Malaysia and now cooking up a tempest: lamb curry, chicken curry, vegetable curry, rice and pappadums. Ted has just got in from work. He is baking a crumble or something. I hear a joyful “yap, yap, yap,” and Chilli bursts onto the scene, closely followed by Iris and Jamie. Jamie is learning lines for his forthcoming starring role in Bedbound at the Lion and Unicorn Theatre in Kentish Town.

Lounging on various sofas are Valentina, her husband Tom and Lydia, another acting friend of ours (I mean in the sense that she is an actress, not a stand-in friend). “Thyat’s a lovely nyecklacke,” Valentina says to Iris, “is it Swarovski?” “No, it’s Muttyovski,” replies Iris. Muttiah then shimmies in with two more crystal necklaces and present Valentina and I with one each.

Over dinner Valentina announces: “I am so hyappy. Now that I have my British citizenship I am going to buy a Kyasee Ooltimo* machine and open a beauty salon.” “What’s that?” we all ask. “It is the latest, most scientific machine for giving non-surgical facelifts." Valentina explains, "They devyeloped it for people who have had strokes and then they found that the side of their face that was being treated was looking younger than the other side. It’s true,” she declares, “it’s better than buttocks!” By this time the whole table is fainting with delight at the idea of a machine that can give one a facelift and is better that Botox. Furthermore, that we should know someone who is about to own such a machine. “I’ll be your guinea pig, “ everyone shouts at once. “I need it the most,” hollers Lydia. “Yes, but I’ve been the sickest,” I proclaim. “I was deeply traumatised as a child,” Jamie declares, in a melodramatic tone. Then, so as to deflect attention from our greedy graspiness we ask Valentina about her salon plans. “I want to hyelp people, like abused women,” says Valentina with the magnanimity of Miss World. “What, you want to give them facelifts?” asks Ted. “No,” she explains patiently, “I want to make a network of people who can help them.” I am still a little mystified by this aspect of Valentina’s business plan.

The conversation soon turns to ghosts and psychic mediums. Everyone tries to top one another’s otherworldly experiences. Jamie and Iris, in their endless quest for the ultimate crazy fad that will make their lives complete, have recently attended the Spiritualist Church. There, Iris’s long-deceased mother spoke to her. I am quite impressed to hear it. It has been my experience that psychic mediums are a bunch of hoodwinkers but I am always willing to entertain a different point of view. Especially if it is backed up by direct experience of someone whose word I trust. We imagine what ghosts might be stalking us right at this very moment. “The Murdered Maid of Mayhem Mansions?” Iris suggests. Spooked now, we decide it is time to leave.

Valentina dons a black headscarf gives us a marvellous demonstration of how to extract folding money from people by telling their fortune. It seems that the technique is to simply terrify them into handing over the cash.

“I think Valentina will make a wonderful beautician,” I remark to Iris in the car on the way home. “Yes, she is so lovely and so kind,” agrees Iris. Valentina is such a big presence that I have never really had a proper conversation with her husband Tom. “What does Tom do?” I ask Iris. She thinks hard for a moment or two. “Well,” she finally tells me, “he has got some kind of a, um, ah, job!” Iris and I fall about laughing. It’s a concept that is totally alien to us.

I’m back at home now, rushing to get this finished so that I can go to bed. I am tremendously excited that I’m going to start using the Revitalash eyelash grower tonight. Even better than that, Nick is arriving in the morning.

*It’s called the CACI Ultimate.

Sunshine and Rainclouds

I meet May for yet another delicious lunch at Providores. Apart from being a budding Shaman, May is a wonderful artist as well as incredibly stylish and loads of fun. We feast on exotic Tapas then stroll on down to Harley Street for a drop of post-prandial Taxol (me) and reading of Harper’s Bazaar (May).

“Hello sexy lady” shouts Cara as I enter the chemo suite. “Hello sexy lady yourself” I reply. And well I might. This lady is the bomb. She’s tall and large with silky black skin and hair sleeked back in a high ponytail. Cara always wears fabulous metallic eye shadows in vivid colours. Later on, as she’s leaving for the day, I catch her dressed in a stunning emerald green ruched dress over black leggings, her neck and ears adorned with peacock blue and sea green gemstones.

“I love, love, love that wig” says nurse Lottie. I’m wearing the red one today.

I love, love, love the nurses’ ability to live their lives to the full. They are a terrific counterpoint to some of the uptight skeletons I see wandering about this locality, their plumped-up lips walking three paces ahead of them, looking so angry and miserable you’d think they’d just had a Louis Vuitton poker rammed up their fundaments. Harley Street is home to numerous aesthetic surgeons. Not that I’d say no to a little ‘anti-ageing therapy’ myself if it was offered, but I just think if you’re going to spend all that money on making yourself look good, you may as well use the new visage to crack open a smile. What’s the point of going about looking like you’ve just found dog excrement in your wheat free organic rocket and carrot sandwich?

Apologies for the rant, back to business.

Chemotherapy today is uneventful. That’s a good thing. It seems that Suzy Cleator’s new, weekly regime is working a treat. I mean working not in the sense of killing the cancer that I don’t have. One hopes it is doing that. I mean working in the sense of having fewer and less severe side effects. As I’ve said, I don’t feel sick. My sense of taste has returned to normal. I’m very tired but so what? I sleep a lot.

What’s cheering me up is that it’s another one off the list. Yea! Only five more to go. The future seems all sunshine and rosy.

Which brings me to Tuesday’s little raincloud. I sincerely apologise to any reader who may have been distressed by my outburst. I have received a deluge of emails and phone calls and I thank you for your concern. Obviously, I’ve apologised to Nick already. He said, “That’s what I’m here for darling.” I adore him more than ever.

I’m so used to going to (name cannot be mentioned) self-help groups where we talk about that stuff all the time. We just get it off our chests, laugh at ourselves and move on. I forget that other people may be shocked or worried by what goes on inside my head.

This chemo lark has its ups and downs but ultimately, I’ve found that acceptance truly is the key to freedom. As long as I tell myself “nooooo, it’s not fair, why me” etc, I will have days like Tuesday. And as long as I just accept what is and get on with each day as it comes then my life will be as good as it can be, right now, today.

People often remark, “You’re so brave.” I don’t see it like that at all. To my mind, true courage is choosing to do what's right, despite one's fear of loss or humiliation. Believe me, if I had any say in the matter I wouldn’t be doing any of this. But the only choice I have now is to do it with good grace or to do it with fear and self-pity. I hope that most of the time I choose the former.

Please don’t be put off reading Chemo Chic in the future. It is not meant to be a misery journal. I promise that normal flippancy will resume immediately.