looking forward

i can touch my own scalp!  i can touch it!  it feels very strange, like the head of a baby, quite nice in a creepy womb regressive way.  yesterday i took to it with scissors and made it into a kind of sinead oconnor plus mohawk thing, because the pain and the malting was becoming unbearable, the malting made me have to wear hats all the time and the hats contributed to the headaches, so enough was enough!  and i cut it all up.  it looked quite cool 90s rebellion for a couple of minutes, but today the mohawk started falling out so i guess i'll have to face up to the true shape of my head very soon...

i am heading back into hospital tomorrow, for a four night stay, to get my first dose of methotrexate.  the next three weeks will be pretty intense: four night admission from tomorrow (wed), four night admission from wednesday week, and 3ish night admission from the following wednesday.  chances are you won't see or hear much from me over this time, so don't panic, everything is probably still going as planned and expected.

i'm much better prepared for hospital this time.  last time, post surgery and still reeling from the shock of the diagnosis, was very difficult.  but thanks to the two weeks of recovery my body is feeling really ace, tip top shape and ready for the fight.  i've put on a few kilos in preparation, i've shaved my head (that's part of the psych up, i'm thinking natalie portman, don't shoot me down) and i'm ready.  and thanks to the extreme generosity of friends and family, i have magazines, a NINTENDO DSi WITH HEAPS OF GAMES OH NO NERDY, books, dvds, nicer trackies and cardies, chocolates... you get the picture.  i'm as ready as i'll ever be.

i'm wrestling with my 3000 word essay at the moment, and possibly going to stay up all night trying to get it done, especially if i keep writing blogs and going on facebook instead of pulling it all together.  i've really thrown myself into this one and it's been a pretty torturous process but i'm hoping that the finished product will be something i can be proud of.  for self-encouragement purposes i was word-counting my notes, then making a percentage of the overall word limit, so when i'd done 900 ish words i had this encouraging "you're 28% finished!!!" headline, except my notes just kept on going and now i'm 120% done (!!!) and still haven't technically written a sentence i can submit.  hoo boy, it's going to be a long night.

but the thing about all of this is, i'm looking forward.  not just in a positive envisionment=realisation way, but in a really pragmatic way.  it might be easy to whinge and say i want my life to go "back" to what it was before, when it was simpler and normal, but realistically i want to go forward.  i'm thinking into the future on the other side of this experience.  i don't want to eliminate the experience because i want to take it with me, but i need to know there is an end in sight.  i'm working so hard on this essay because i want to do my honours in this subject.  i want to get my degree and have really learned and thought about the world, and i'll take this experience on as another learning challenge.  so forward thinking, everybody!  nostalgia is a waste of time and energy.

hope you're all well and busy, and i'll write again as soon as i feel well.  every day the cancer gets a little bit more fucked. :)