Main character eyebrows & fresh starts

Chemo is over - it's the end of the beginning

Unlike in the movies, I rang no bell to mark the end of chemo - the final session was cancelled because my body had hit its limit. That meant I discovered the date of my last chemo two weeks after it happened!

Goodbye, chemo!

But we did toast the news during my emergency stay in hospital, with a can of ginger ale and a chocolate truffle.

It's been the most physically and mentally arduous ordeal of my life so far: losing my parents was emotionally tougher, but there's a consoling comfort in anticipated grief. With cancer, it’s the combo of the treatment effects on body and mind that makes l it so hard.

BUT: right upfront I want to reassure anyone about to start chemo: it is not always like this. I got unlucky. It’s proof of what medics said to me at the start - everyone responds differently and it’s highly unpredictable. The chances are, your experience will be very different.

However, it was important to me yesterday when I saw my consultant that he acknowledged that I’d had a rough ride - there have been times when I’ve worried that my response to treatment showed I’m a wimp. No, he said:

‘You have had a complicated and difficult time with chemo. You crash hard but you bounce back.’

I should be able to recognise this myself, right? But it helps to hear it from someone with decades of experience.

So in this post, I'm dying to focus on the bounce back: if you’ve been following me, thank you. You deserve this, too. There will be lots of before/after photos.

The green shoots are genuinely astonishing to me — if you are in the middle of chemo, I know it won’t seem possible that this day can come.

But two weeks ago I was on an A&E trolley, struggling to breathe. Today I feel like a new woman, with brows to match. Believe me, it happens. The body’s capacity for renewal is amazing.

Main Character Eyebrows and Lashes of Lashes

Then: My brows and lashes were the very last to go - this is common. After hanging in there for five months, they were whisked away by EC, along with the last of my nose hairs. Brows are relatively easy to draw on, but I missed the lashes the most.

Now: the first teeny tiny eyebrow hairs showed within 10 days of ending chemo. The eyelashes were still falling then, I counted them all out (Falklands echo for 80s kids) and about a week ago, I started counting them back.

The day I could highlight them with a little new mascara was a landmark. I will never not put mascara on again.

Every day, I beg my partner to do a brow check and he patiently complies. There are loads of them. I’ve always had weirdly black eyebrows and right now they’re more salt and pepper, but I can now get away without brow pencil if I am lazy, without looking like a Tefalhead.

Nose hair wise, I became massively sensitive to all cooking smells when they departed, and got a permanent (though not too annoying) drippy nose. Now I can tolerate the smell of onions again.

Good and bad hair days:

Hair loss is the biggie for many of us and I’ve described my journey through cold capping. In the end, it worked a bit, I’d say. The first phase of treatment made me lose maybe 80% of my hair but when I look back at pictures now I am astonished at how lush it looks. The second phase took the rest except for a lick at the front. But all the time I’ve also had bits of regrowth in between, especially after treatment breaks.

Big fancy dress hair, pre-chemo cut, today

A drastic way to transition to grey

When white hairs start coming through, you do wonder when you might stop dyeing and allow the white to show through. This is definitely the nuclear approach - because what’s growing back is white and dark, badger crossed with Mallen streak. The white bits don’t show against the scalp making me look balder in some parts than others.

Right now, though, I’m loving the tiny darker bits in front of my ears, silky as my terrier’s ears. And yesterday I had some of the Einstein halo trimmed off by my wonderful hairdresser, who also gave me a glorious scalp massage - another instance of something being done to me that wasn’t medical and it took me a while to relax into it.

I don’t think it suits me to be this short, especially as the steroids I’m on are bringing the moon face back. But. I can cope. Wigs are wonderful and I love my Rosie the Riveter scarf so much I've made another one of my own.

Fighting tooth and nail and the importance of self-care

Then: Nails can be the unexpected casualties of some chemo drugs and I was warned about this early, with a recommendation to use Polybalm and to paint my nails dark (the theory is this prevents UV damage, there seems to be no firm evidence but I did it anyway). Polybalm is expensive - I’ve spent £100 on two sets but the tubes have lasted for six months. I kept my nails and didn’t get any infections, though my thumbnails especially did weaken and my toenails looked iffy for a while.

The photos of what some people suffer - Day-Glo green infections and loss of their nails/dexterity made me convinced this was worth it - maybe ask a friend to gift you some?

Now: touch wood, they’re looking good. And caring for my nails became an unexpectedly pleasurable ritual during treatment. As the rest of my appearance fell apart, applying new colours was meditative and I got much better at it. I used OPI and Nailkind and non-acetone remover to minimise damage.

Even when I went into A&E I was determined to hang onto the sky blue polish I went in with, despite the staff's frustration when it interfered with measuring my oxygen sats. But that little stubborn element helped me feel like me, and I came home with it still on, albeit a little chipped…

Teeth and skin: I’m noticing a lot of freckling. But actually I have rather a nice glow at the moment - again, I did make moisturising a ritual, with very simple products, no retinol during chemo.

Dentally, chemo can be devastating and my teeth are pretty rubbish anyway. I have noticed they’re much more sensitive so need to get that checked out, I guess. But later. I want to be gentle with myself for a while…

Appetite and booze:

Then: The effect on my digestion has been the most consistently upsetting. Because chemo targets fast-growing cells (cancer cells but also those for hair, skin, digestive tract), you’re under attack inside and out. Gaviscon did help once I discovered it. Plus colitis meant I had to eat white bread, spuds and eggs with no veg for about 5 weeks. Yuk. I also drank very little alcohol because I didn’t fancy it and it made me feel worse.

Now: the heartburn has mostly stopped. I want to eat but actually healthy stuff and protein. And the odd truffle.

Alcohol wise, it’s summer, I have holidays planned before surgery. Yes, booze can increase your risk of cancer but hey, I’ve already got it. I am going to see what I fancy. Red wine, fizz, the odd margarita. Or maybe not. Now is definitely not the time to beat myself up. But I don’t fancy a hangover much either.

Farewell, PICC line - the best friend I never knew I needed

So long, farewell...

Then: having a long thin tube inserted from my inner arm into the bottom of my actual heart was one of the first invasive things to happen. It scared me. Yet within a few days, I realised how brilliant a PICC line can be. Used to deliver chemo drugs (which can be very damaging to narrow blood vessels) and to take bloods with zero pain, the line must have saved me from at least 200 cannulas and blood tests.

Even after chemo ended, it was used for the steroids that helped my lungs recover.

Now: But this week, I waved it goodbye. I felt nervous, like it was tempting fate to lose that safety net. The nurse asked me to exhale as it he pulled the line out, seemingly endless, like a skinny purple worm. It was painless except the slight sting from the antiseptic. My skin had been covered there for six months and looked very pale… but otherwise the scar is tiny and healing already.

The best bit is I can shower again and am going to be able to swim, hoorah!

Manic pixie steroid girl gives zero f***s

Then: I’ve been very low, as you know, and afraid and angry. But also sometimes determined and purposeful and amused.

Now: steroids rock! I’m full of pred-energy and I am starting to wean off though slowly so my immune system doesn’t decide to mount a new attack on a random organ. I'll look forward to sleeping again and losing my chubby cheeks once the drugs stop.

But at a deeper level, I’d like to hang onto 10% of the steroid certainty. It’s invigorating. Since my mum died in 2018 and my dad in 2021, I’ve felt rudderless, unsure how to be this new Kate. Plus I've had all the usual mid-life menopausal madness. Writing, which had been my mainstay, became something I couldn’t engage with. It was devastating.

This crisis has given me back my mojo in the most unexpected way. I’ve reconnected with words and myself as a storyteller. As well as this blog, I have started a book rooted in my childhood that’s so different and may not ‘sell’ but makes me want to return to the page.

And this blog will be reinvented into something I hope patients might find useful - once I know the end of the story…

What happens next…?

Ah yes, the end of the story.

The last chemo is only the end of the beginning. It lasted from December 23 2024 to May 22 2025. 14 out of 16 completed, with two cancellations because my system couldn't take them.

Triple negative breast cancer is a brute, so treatment is designed to match.

Next step will be surgery to take out the lymph nodes under my right arm - the one known to have a tumour, and all the others connected to it. What the surgeon removes will be tested to see if chemo killed all the cancer cells or if there are some remaining.

Depending on that result, I either move into radiotherapy later in the summer OR have more chemo in pill form. I fervently hope it’s the former as the thought of more chemo isn’t enticing.

But I can do nothing now but wait.

A heartfelt thank you

Actually, there is one last thing to do - to thank you for being here so far.

I have gained so much support from comments here and on Facebook. Your patience and empathy have made me feel less isolated and - that word again - validated. You’ve also made me feel I might be doing something that’s bigger than me, that this could be useful for patients and relatives, and that has prompted me to stay honest. My posts are too long but editing hasn’t been easy when I’ve wanted to record it for my own sake too. If I turn this into an e-book, I'll think more about my readers. So I appreciate your patience.

I intend to continue writing about my next adventures - I hope you’ll join me.

Here’s to green shoots wherever we can find them.