Hi there @SamJgS ...I can identify with all of the above. There's nothing quite so shocking as your own body betraying you by going feral. It is true that the person you were before no longer exists, you are a new you now...physically and emotionally. Before this shitfest. I had long brown hair with silver at the temples which I sat on. I had grown it since I was 11 years old. I sat on my hair at my wedding, 39 years ago, and still did so for all the years between. I used to joke that as I was known either as Dave's wife. Katie and Jesse's mother or The Lady With The Long Hair, that if I divorced my hubby, then killed my kids and then cut my hair, nobody would know who the hell I was. Well the family is intact, but the hair didn't. Bald as a billiard ball. Now it has regrown a bit. an explosion of silver grey curls, and my new name is Albert, (as in Einstein). I now have to walk with a granny walker because of severe neuropathy and lack of balance. I have no tits (used to be a 18D. My brain has turned to porridge and items are now called the thingies. The clicky thingy (remote control) the cutty thingies (scissors), the pully outy thingy (tweezers) and so on. I have had episodes of sheer rage, terror, sadness and frustration, but fuck me, I'm still here. I was diagnosed when my grandson was 14 months old, and also at one point during chemo, thought what's the point? I'm just kicking the can down the road...I'm going to fucking die anyway...so why prolong the agony? Better for me to cark it now, before Little Man really knows me, rather than for him to only remember me as some old, sick and dying woman in a few years time. Then a central part of the old me resurfaced and shouted FUCK NO....fight like the scrapper you are...never give in... and so I have. Yesterday was my Little Man's 3rd birthday party, and granny was there, celebrating with him. I intend to watch him blow out many more candles in the future. Each of us is different, yet we are all the same. All of us here, female, male, young, middle and older, single or with families, parents or not, rich and poor...we all get it and we are all standing together. We have each other's backs, and we have yours. Much love and (((hugs))).
