My Rainbow🌈

I have somuch to say but every ti.e i touch anythi g it feels like i am putting myhand onto one of these (see pic) but as if the pins don’t go in when pressed: have taken gloves off to type. 

Was about to giveup with pasti g this pic..was about to cry which i have done since i staryed chemo #2 this morning. (Well i actually already had an outburst in thecar on  the way because i was tired before even leaving the house. ) i used to be on my feet all day….felt disappointed in myself. 

Then DB “passed by” as he always has done so “coincidentally” to my appointments. But….he doesn’t actually care or have emotions…yeah right! THANKS BRUV! You have been there all the way🥰

Arrived at hosp with DH.The nurse failed to access my portacath two times. I was in pain and scared that i may have to get it all inserted again but Alhamdulillah (thank God) she called another nurse and it went in 3rd time. Tears ran down my cheek throuhhout.
Sweet of DMiL to send food to thr hospital😊

Hoping for a less emotional day tomorrow with minimal side effects. Have taken 30 mins gettinh ready for bed. Hardest part was brushing teeth without getting my gloves wet. Oh and washing hands and putying cream om my face(which i have to do i know!#)
All this with my baby (chemo bottle) attached to me again for 3days. I thank god that i can take tbe treatment home and don’t have to stay in hospital. Thank god for those who contribute in any form to cancer research# and advancing medical treatment. 🤲
Mita sapna(sweet dreams)

Right this waking up at odd times during the night is getting annoying. It is 5am on a Saturday morning and i don’t need to be doing this!!! Normally i am too exhausted to be typing but here i am so i’m going to write through my recent thoughts.

So Chemo cycle #1 is over. I am feeling good for the last couple of days. Now anxious about the next treatment on Monday. I think back to last week. 

Monday treatment day 1

The fear of the unknown. I was worried. I didn’t know what to expect today but tried not to think about it. I have always been one to take each day as it comes. I need to continue this attitude i reminded myself. It was hard thsi time though.

I didn’t have to wear the hospital gown which actually really helped mentally! My joggers and pink nike top made me feel normal!

I have to appreciate that the jacket potato really helped with distracting me during this time when the first chemo meds went in. I could actually just live on eating jacket potatoes… �

Me and Dear Hubby spent the day at the hospital while the first medicine was givem over a few hours. I know of some of the side effects and wondered if they could hapoen straight away. I don’t think they did but i kept my mind off it by talking to DH and watching a christmas movie that had started on time on TV. (No idea what it was about or anything but just seeing the beautiful christmas lights and atmosphere really helpled!). And Nicola came and had a half hour chat with me about random things which also helped! 

By evening it started. A constant feeling of nausea even after having loads of antisickness (including a strong intravenous one in the hosp before the treatment). Being at mums is great as there are so many things to keep my mind busy when i need it. Fot those times when i need space i can just go up and rest. 

So i realised that a few new best friends have now entered life…ginger ale, ginger biscuits, ginger sweets and anything that helps with feeling sick! I had about 6-8 cans of ginger ale in one day. This continued every day until day 7. 

Confession time 🕧
I have always had a fear of throwing up so since i got diagnosed it has been a worry for me as i know one of the main side effects of chemo was nausea. However..Nicola had reassured me that all the side effects are now manageable. There is some medication to conteract most of the symptoms that i may or may not come across in my own chemo journey. Everyone will react differently. I was just going to see how it went for me and pray for minimal side effects while the treatment does its job successfully and completely! 🙏🤲 (never been quite sure which of these emojis is the praying hands one. Someone told me that th first one was a hi five..hmmm). 

So i was sent home with one of the chemo medicines attached to me through the portacath in my arm (a procedure in itself which i will try and write about at some point.) It was not too bad but,in retrospect, maybe i should have opted for the general anaesthetic they offered). Anyway, I had a bottle attached to me in a bag and had to go in on wednesday or thursday to remove it. My new second home for a few months; the hospital!

The cool bag they give me to wear which I have now replaced with a much cooler one that I had bought ages ago for walking. (Will take a pic for you guys next time!)

Day 2

The night went well and i slept upright the whole time as i was aware of the bottle. The next night was easier as i got more comfortable with it being there. Oh and i found a much more trendy looking bag for it to put around my waist. (Althought the scar from the operation is still healing so kept it loose).

That constant nausea and an unpleassnt feeling and horrible taste in my mouth. I kept snacking to help. It was weird as i felt pregnant again. It was a similar feeling and the bottle actually resembled a baby’s bottle! It was pink so would have had to be a girl!!

Day 3
Hospital in the evening to get the bottle removed with Dear Brother Took 5 minutes alhamdulillah. No pain.

Days 4 and 5

What a blur! Such a weird few days. Now i know what it means to ‘feel out of sorts’. I think! Alway tired, confused, forgetting. I remember very little from these days. I was not prepared for this as i thought i would be fine after the bottle had been removed and all the meds was finished. But no…now it was doing its job i guess. I was exhausted but couldn’t sleep. I wanted to just close my eyes all the time and be in a quiet place. But at times i wanted to be around the family but when anyone spoke to me it was a huge effort to fathom what they had said let alone actually respond. I wanted to be there but not be spoken to maybe? I remember feeling like i was in a playground of very loud people even though i think there was only 3 of us in the house. It felt overwhelming and exhausting to look at anyone let alone the phone or a tv screen. Even going to the bathrooon was such an effort. Oh and then coming out again! I felt disappointed that i couldn’t respond to my kids when they told me sxhool stories so enthusiastically. I reminded myself that this is temporary. I thought of the positives: i felt a little less nauseous and i could just avoid this in the next cycle by staying away from noise when i felt like this. In future cycles I will preserve my energy and use it wisely. 

My porta cath was more painful today. It should be almost healed now that it has been over a week.

Day 7
Went to hosp to get portacath checked. Alhamdulillah (Thank god) it was ok. By the way love this word…’Alhamdulillah’..you may find i say it a lot!

They said that my immunity is lowest for the next few days so i must stay far from people to avoid catching anything. Otherwise they cannot do the next cycle until the white blood cell numbers go back up. I need this over with asap. I need to stay strong. 

Ok so i guess it wasn’t too bad. I now kind of know what to expect. They said symptoms may become worse with the consequent cycles as more medicine is collecting in me. However, it differs with each person. Ot could get easier as i will learn ways to manage the side effects. Let’s see! Whatever it is, we will deal with it. 

A big thank you to everyone who is helping me through. The constant love, food, reflexology, helping with kids school picks and drops, just making the kids smile and talking to them! 

Thanks for giving me space when i have needed it and putting up with my orders and moodiness. My apologies in advance for any more that may come. It is not me..it is the ‘chemo brain’ as Nicola keeps reminding me!

Oh and spoiling me with such personal gestures and of course most importantly the prayers..loving it! 

Wow…time has flown…it is 7am! I should go. 

Ciao 

So today i went out for the first time properly (hospital visots don’t count! The social Dhabba in Hatchend..love it! Deep fried spinach..who would have thought! Had the best company and the best waiter Kevin of course who has inspired us all! His Moto: Don’t stress!! Be happy. His aim is to make every customer leave the place truly happy and lifted and he so clearly succeeded with everyone while we were there! 

Happy Birthday to the best Sis! Thanks for always being there for me rain or shine!

No energy to go into the interesting stories he told about his experience in kuwait during the war and how positively he spoke of them. So chilled! Just enjoying life and everuthing it throws his way! 

Kevin’s secret to looking 25 at the age of 40; drinking water from a copper jug, taking centrum, no stressing and always smiling!!

Must go sleep. Blood test tmro to make sure white cells are high enough to do chemo #2 then seeing Nicola (the oncologist who is going to be my BFF for the next few months) 

Oh and Donald trump went past while we were in the restaurant…apparently there was a big hullaballoo outside while me and mum were chatting away waiting for the others lol!!!

Over and out!

Very easily we judge the things that happen to us. We think we know. Why me we ask??? But for a moment, just stop and think. Maybe this thing which I think is a test from God…. maybe it is actually a blessing? One of my greatest regrets… not becoming an optometrist as I had planned and visualised since GCSE’s. A blessing? Maybe. With time i am realising that…. yes… it was a blessing! 

I met DH in the year when I would have been away at uni. What if I didn’t meet him because i chose to pursue the optometry? Where would I be now? Would i be married? Would i have kids? Maybe i would be in another country? Away from the family? I would have missed out on all my nephews’ growing up (my 5 musketeers!). Would i have got carried away with my career ambitions and then not had a family until later on? But then i would have had this ‘blessed’ cancer journey to take on and the kids would have been that much younger! How amazing that they are old enough to take charge and actually make their own soft cheese and cucumber sandwiches, have their own ‘hair showers’ and pack football stuff (well….getting there with remembering the shin pads and water bottle!!). It was a blessing. I didn’t become an optometrist and became a teacher. Absolutely love helping children grow and flourish. What a special responsibility. I wouldn’t change anything. 

BTW: I recieved a huge ‘get well soon’ card yesterday made by my Year 3’s. So personal and made with such love. Defo wouldn’t have got one of those if i checked people’s eyes for a living!!

So a blessing?  Yes! 

Since daddy passed away (6 years now) i have increasingly become aware of the great impact that society and ‘people’ have on our preconceptions. We start to think and even say what we hear from others. Our reactions start to mirror other peoples’ reactions. We say ‘O No! That school is soooo violent!’ Just based on one parent sharing a story about one child who got into a fight. What about the rest of the children who are absolutely flourishing in the school?

When told last month that i have the ‘dreaded illness’, for a moment it felt like everything had crumbled and life was over. After having my breakdown i asked myself what it was that i was worried about most. After remembering the domino effect of chat amongst ‘people’ i realised that that’s what it was! it was the reaction that people have when they hear that someone has ‘Cancer’! I had a flashback in the consultant’s room (which a nurse kindly opened for us when she saw my outburst in the corridor!). A flashback of when i told a friend that daddy had been diagnosed with Pulmonary Fibrosis. She merely said ‘Ah wish him better from us!’. She had no idea what it was and to be honest neither did i until i did some research and my dad himself pointed out to me that even cancer is treatable and curable but what he has is not. Pulmonary Fibrosis has no cure as yet, just ways of making life more comfortable.  He lived for the maximum 2 years after diagnosis. It is hard to write this but i now understand that it was a blessing. I was his favourite (my siblings will not be reading this obvs!) and he would not have been able to see me go through any hardship!

Ten minutes on i came out the room having decided that i was ready to take on this ‘Blessing’ that Dr Akbar had just revealed to me! God is giving me an opportunity to make positive changes in my life. This life that is so temporary. The life which i was taking for granted. Life had become a daily ‘routine’! Wake, school, work, after school clubs, dinner, bed! Oh and god forbid if anything was late or didn’t happen! Oh the guilt if the kids had to miss a club one day or eat mashed potato for dinner because i was tired. I thought it was the end of the world if things did not work as planned!

Next step, shivering outside the hospital in the rain and cold with DH and DB. How do we break the news to the family? I was worried about their reaction to the word ‘cancer’ but after some reasoning realised that it was what it was and I will need to remember that people just know what they have heard from others and society. Once again down to the people domino effect! 

From today I decided that things will change for the better. When Daddy left us I had already been through this wake up call and then again after subsequent other difficult times. However, once again I had slipped into those habits where I forgot about the meaning of this life.

I looked forward to the new beginning. I have been given a blessing and I am going to embrace it God willing!

Dear Daughter had chosen the most beautiful sunny spot in mums sitting room to pray. Right by the window the sun rays shone on her while she spoke to God. It was so peaceful to watch. Proud mummy moment. Well actually proud Nani moment! This was definitely thanks to Nani (the proper white chaadar gave it away!). One of her wise lines: do it wholeheartedly or don’t do it at all! DD was definitely doing this with her whole heart!

I began to think about all these moments we miss in life because we are too busy. i remembered something the presenter had said on a teaching course i had attended last year;

WE ARE BUSY BEING BUSY! 

Incessantly planning and getting ready for the next thing on the to-do list.

Rushing around…… busy being busy while we forget about looking after ourselves. Our body, our mind, our soul!

I was inspired by my DD to do some meditation. i took the same spot after she was done (except i was on a chair like a buddhi!). i did some deep breathing while taking in the open view of the garden. So liberating. i ‘youtubed’ meditation and came across a TED talk (so exciting that i actually have the time to watch these!). The speaker had read my mind! He presented it in an interesting way;

We act as if we are being chased by a lion!

 Running through all the events of life as if they are actually going to come to an end so that we can then stop to look after ourselves! I thought of my pre operation to do list…LOL!! They do not end! They expand forever! 

Hoping to fit meditation into my daily routine! 

Link to the TED talk below for the teacher’s pets… (i haven’t finished it yet so watch at own risk!)

Inspired by this moment at Cafe Alizey…this was just before my treatment started. Loved the conversations we had!

Be yourself; Everyone else is already taken.

— Oscar Wilde.

This is the first post on my new blog. I’m just getting this new blog going, so stay tuned for more. Subscribe below to get notified when I post new updates.

I am Nishat. A pretty regular girl (or maybe lady at the age 38). An amazing wife to Dear Hubby(DH) for 17 years. A loving fun mum to my Dear Daughter (DD) aged 14 and my Dear Son(DD)aged 10.  (My chance to big myself up😉). Being a Primary teacher for ages now I absolutely love kids and they are what have got me through tough times in life!

So a bit of background before I invite you in to read more.I have an older Sister and Brother. Dad sadly passed away 6 years ago and my inspiration in life…my mum lives up the road which is amazing! I was born and bred in London and got married and had kids very young which was fab!!

I am not a social media person at all. In fact I have made a conscious effort to stay away from it. My life is mine and I felt that all this new technology takes away from enjoying the moment.

I felt (still feel to some extent) that our present moment can easily be taken over by taking pics and posting things for others to see. When really we should be solely concentrating on the moment. From a young age in always liked the full undivided attention of loved ones when they were with me( yes I may have been annoying guys..sorry!).

On holiday my phone has always stayed in the locker. And I don’t take part in social media posting. But recently my perception has changed a little. I am realising that there are benefits if used in the right way.

So let me explain how I have come to write about my life publicly. Something I never thought I would do. I started off last month writing a personal online journal after being pushed by the kids. Oh by the way, I also have 5 nephews who I have practically mothered as well. They are grown up now so I have someone for all my needs and wants in life!

Anyway, the personal journal went down really well with close family and friends and people started asking for more. I felt that I enjoyed it too. A way to share my feelings and for others to know what is going on with me. So here I am starting a blog!

Three months ago I was diagnosed with Colon Cancer and had a major op to remove a tumour 3 days after diagnosis. I am now undergoing chemotherapy and this is what has triggered me to begin writing online!

My apologies in advance for typos and if my writing doesn’t make sense sometimes. I have ‘chemo brain’ most days especially for the first 10 days after each treatment. Then I have a few good days too so hopefully some of it will make sense!😎 I don’t read through my posts either as I have little patience at the moment and most of the time I am typing with gloves on as my fingers are in pain. So I am allowed!! Also, it is more natural that way right!!?

🛣This is a journey which I know I am not taking alone and by reading my posts I hope you feel a part of it. I have been so touched by everyone around me and feel so loved! I have not been seeing and talking to my friends and family much because i am so exhausted most of the time and am preserving any energy to spend with the kids. But I know everyone just wants me to do whatever is going to make me better quickly. I know sometimes it is difficult to know what to do to help. I have felt the same way in the past but please be reassured that I know everyone is praying for me and that is what i need most.

I hope to write posts when I can and would like to continue after this journey too!

As a starting point I have added the posts from the last few months that I had shared with some of you already.

Smile..always xxx