I had my final herceptin injection in the left leg at 10am this morning. It stung and I swore a bit (read: a lot). But did you also know that 75 weeks ago, almost to the day I was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer, HER2+, oestrogen negative, ductal bollocky carcinoma. If you’re thinking this is a long time ago, it is. It is absolutely bloody ages.

By some measures I’ve gone through it relatively quickly, lucky enough to have private health cover with my job, meant I rarely had to wait long for appointments or theatre time when an operation was due. I could choose my plastic surgeon and half edible food off the menu. And yet, a year and a half of my life has been swallowed up, and I am only now just stepping into the long corridor of recovery. This alone can take up to two years as my body slowly heals from the onslaught of some of the most toxic chemicals the body can have tipped into its veins in the name of medicine, along with a back passage clogging amount of general anaesthetic, and a bin bag full of tablets.

In the diary of a cancer patient it is such a long time that it defies belief almost, that here we are in 2017 and it takes that bloody long to get someone in the doors, through the countless scans, X-rays, MRI’s, biopsies, endless blood tests, physiotherapy, painkillers, steroids, anti-sickness tablets, stomach injections to prevent neutropenia, 16 rounds of chemotherapy, 18 herceptin injections, 6 operations, far too many dodgy prawn sandwiches, doctors appointments, expander fills, a relationship bordering on illegal with Movicol, prosthesis fittings, all night poonamis, supplements, antibiotics, juices, pink wees and all the other things that have got me through from week one to seventy-five.

I feel overwhelmed when I look back through my folder of pictures – a photo diary of all those endless weeks. I took pictures of everything from hospital food, scars, breasts in various stages of removal, ports, scanners, needles to hair loss and growth, the lot. As I was scrolling through I had to pause as my eyes were filling with tears, not at the loss of my hair, or even really the Eartha’s; but the odd photo when I can see the pain in my eyes, the puffy steroid-filled face staring back at an 18 month older me. The blotches all over my face from chemo rash, my cracked lips and bloody nose, dark circles of yet another lost nights sleep, my father dying, me doing my best to be brave on the day they found another tumour, spending half the night on the loo and days when I barely had the energy to dress. It was just the sheer interminable length of time that I have been so terribly ill.

But there are also days when I lay in the sun and smiled, giggled at some poo joke, or one of HD’s dodgy dance routines or just breathed in hard and felt the warmth of a future in front of me. People tell me I’m lucky, yes damn right I am…. I’m alive and I have a lovely home, some amazing friends and family and that’s all that matters. But don’t tell me to be grateful; don’t get me wrong, I am very much so, every day when I wake up and have another day  – but don’t think I am lucky or should be grateful. You could have it all quite frankly, all the cancer and the hospital appointments and the pain each time when they try and find a vein and I come home covered in plasters where they failed. I do some days feel fed up at all that time spent doing everything I could to get better, we have so little time here and moments are just that, gone in a second, that wasting 75 sodding weeks for someone who positively hates being ill, for the sole reason that it’s a waste of a perfectly good day – has been galling at times, even though all that hard work paid off 100 fold. I still haven’t handed in my sick leave note from before Christmas, not because I am shit at admin, I just hate being off ill. Or in this case, off my tits (I have two now) on pain killers. I should add up all the minutes I’ve spent sitting on the lovely old Victorian stool in the utility room, trying to cool off while my face drips with sweat from another flush. Or in the office when I flick on the fan for a cool-down. But you can’t, and to be honest I wouldn’t want to even try. They’ve gone you see, all those minutes, already washed away into the past. Along with my cancer. Gone.

Cancer some days has a funny way of making you see life almost through a tunnel, blinkered, while you put your head down and take those steps from one day, one hour, week, minute, treatment, tick-tock, needle, IV, tick-tock… run, sleep, sweat… tick-tock, shower, breathe, tick-tock. Tick-tock. But also for seeing life for what matters, those that have really cared, sunny days, hugs and doing things you love. So in a way, it’s like being in a tunnel and then all of a sudden on some days you’re not. You’re outside and you can see everything with such clarity you wonder what the fuckety, fuck you were thinking all along.

I started this blog for a number of reasons, 75 weeks ago… because writing for me has always been one of the best ways I express myself, I do it for work and I have notebooks around the house with doodles, lists and thoughts. I loved writing at school and I still do now. So, this has become my way of writing down, recording how I feel – how I felt through the bad and the better bits. The wonky eyebrows, the  itchy skin and the nights  spent staring restlessly at the ceiling, or trying to sneak to the loo in the night in hospital, dragging my IV along for company. It was also intended for friends and family, so they knew what was happening, where I was, how I was – without having to continually ask. ‘So how’s it going…?’ They would already know. The fact that it has helped others in the same situation gladdens my heart, but also saddens it… too many still are suffering.

The level of care that I’ve had at the hospital where I’ve been treated has been fabulous, from hugs to cups of tea left for me on reception.

From the quality of care to the brains behind it all, Chemo Sabe, the Moan Arrangers, Dr Babylon, Mr Lanky and the lovely Dr Fat Biscuits. There is one particular nurse who sticks in my mind, the day I had my exploding tit biopsy in August 2015, a young nurse was sitting next to me, while Dr Babylon skewered my tumours and while I bled all over the table and floor. She held my hand in hers and talked to me and knew what to say without being trite. She was perfect, kind and gave me strength. I’ve seen her several times since, she’s stopped to chat in the corridor, or high-fived me and given me a hug. She works in the phlebotomy department, which is where if you don’t already know, where they do the blood tests. She’s one of the needle in the arm vein ladies, the vampire blood-letters. I saw her this morning for my last blood test, she asked how I was doing and I told her it’s my last day today. Then we both just stared at each other, blinking hard for a moment at the enormity of what I’d just said. Then she told me that she would always remember me, for my courage and my smiles (I recall crying the first time we met, so think she was being polite…) but also because that day in August 2015, when I bled all over the place, was her first day on the job as a nurse. I had thanked her and she remembered that, but also sadly her aunt was diagnosed with cancer around the same time, and she knew better what she was going through because of me. Sadly her aunt didn’t make it. But she told me I had to live now for both of them. I promised her I would. Then she took the blood from my vein, we smiled, said polite goodbyes and I walked out of the cubicle. I couldn’t look back, I think we were both still blinking hard.

And so, she was my inspiration for this last cancer treatment blog, because having my hand held at the start and at the end of all this bollocks, feels like the right way to complete at least this stage of my ramblings. Holding someone’s hand says many things beside that you care, that you’re not alone. It’s my last memory of my father and he has been on my mind a lot lately, it would have been his birthday this week, so it feels more than proper that I should have been holding his hand in my heart today. She held my hand at the beginning and she was there, perhaps by chance, to sign me off at the end.

It’s strange that today was my last day of what they call ‘active treatment’, while it’s still going on, you feel sort of supported, safe, monitored and getting some drugs that might stop it coming back. While I still might need a bit of lipo on right Eartha and Melons still needs a nipple and a tattoo; as I walked out of the doors this morning, I thought to myself is this a tunnel moment or a door wide open, kind of occasion?

The door ladies and gentlemen is of course WIDE FUCKING OPEN.

I’m sure not for the last time, but at least for now I can say in the largest and loudest letters on the planet,

I HAVE FINISHED MY TREATMENT.

PS Might be back to share some cheerier stories with you, but hopefully no more bastard cancer.