I know exactly who I am; I am Oluremi's granddaughter, the spitting image of my mama...

I have always been quite clear on who and what I am and I always thought what I am was individual, secure enough to be different and not follow the popular path. I never got into boys in secondary school or alcohol in university or the fashion or makeup or all the partying over the years. I don't like being the centre of attention, being in the mix of things is just not me. So popular cool just wasn't the right fit for me. But I thought I had a handle on individual cool, i.e doing my own thing, liking what I liked and not giving a damn.

I thought I had a handle on it from an early age, on not being the same as everyone else. I didn't do toys, teddy bears or Barbie...truth be told I never got the appeal of dolls but since I had to have one I rebelled and chose Sindy, just to be different.

What I did do was read, and not just the preferred 'childrens books' like Enid Blyton or the Eze books but thanks to Big V, we read Dickens, Shakespeare, Buchi Emecheta, Cyprian Ekwensi etc long before we had to in English Literature class, heck long before we understood themes and moods. Thanks to Big V again, I suspect KK and I knew the words to Nat King Cole's Unforgettable as well as if not better than we knew the Nigerian national anthem. Frank Sinatra and Sam Cooke were also part of our musical repertoire and I could sing Victor Olaiya with the best of them...I still can!! I loved the King, Elvis not Michael, and at that age I knew he was also an actor, Kissin Cousins was a childhood favourite movie for a time...till either the L's or the R's stole it!!!

So I was well on my way at an early age and I thought by my 20s I had a pretty good handle on being URO and not one of the pack. Though I had one or two misadventures I didn't fall completely into the hedonistic or materialistic trap. I'm not into the bag or phone or whatever of the moment. I don't need to see or be seen. I'm actually more content not being seen.

And now in my 30s, how really different am I? Looking closely I discover I'm neither quirky/nerdy nor any kind of cool. What I am is -

Eastenders; a cup of tea with milk and two teaspoons of sugar but first thing in the morning it's a cup of coffee with milk and two teaspoons of sugar or maybe a latte from Starbucks with a butter croissant to go; malted milk and custard creams and bourbons; romance novels, thrillers, James Rollins and Judith McNaught; Empire, Madam Secretary, Burn Notice, Sons of Anarchy, Blue Bloods, The Graham Norton Show; Jersey Boys, Les Miserables, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof; Adele, Bruno Mars, Michael Jackson, Janet Jackson, The Jackson 5, The Jacksons, Off the Wall,Thriller, Dirty Diana, Q's Jook Joint, Smokey Robinson and Lionel Richie, Elvis, some Madonna, Carmina Burana but mostly O Fortuna; Friends and 30 Rock and Modern Family, The Royle Family; It's a Wonderful Life, Guys & Dolls, Lord of the Rings Trilogy, Love Actually, An Affair to Remember; Cary Grant, Marlon Brando, Jean Simmons, Grace Kelly, Tom Hanks; chinese takeaway, indomie noodles, ofada rice, fried rice and jollof rice, yam and egg or maybe corned beef; meatpie and sausage roll, McDonalds and KFC, maybe Burger King or Five Guys; Percy Sledge's When a Man Loves a Woman, Frank Sinatra's My Way and New York New York, Neil Young's Hey Hey My My but the version by Battleme, Victor Olaiya's Omopupa, Fela's Zombie, Fela's Yanga; Tennesse Williams, Chinua Achebe; Jagua Nana's Daughter, The Rose Trilogy; General Hospital on Youtube; Rice Crispies; skinny jeans tucked into Uggs or knee high boots in winter, long dress or skinny jeans or leggings and flip flops in summer....

I could go on forever but you already know what I am because what I am is probably what you are, it is what probably what most people are and that is the same as everyone else, bloody average!!!

But holdup wait a minute...what I am NOT is - X Factor or American Idol, football or tennis or any kind of sports (save the olympics or world cup and even then it's mostly peer pressure), no Kardashian show or any such reality programme, no Countdown, Deal or No Deal, or Come Dine with Me... So maybe just maybe I'm a little different :)

Title's a play on the lyrics of Jessica Andrews 'Who I Am'.

Battle Wounds

“On the girl's brown legs there were many small white scars. I was thinking, Do those scars cover the whole of you, like the stars and the moons on your dress? I thought that would be pretty too, and I ask you right here please to agree with me that a scar is never ugly. That is what the scar makers want us to think. But you and I, we must make an agreement to defy them. We must see all scars as beauty. Okay? This will be our secret. Because take it from me, a scar does not form on the dying. A scar means, I survived.” 
― Chris Cleave, Little Bee

The above quote appeared on my Facebook timeline, posted by someone in the Phyllodes Tumour group of which I am a member. It resonated, especially as I am still struggling to settle into the changes wrought on me physically by the mastectomy. 

I have never really had an issue with scars, and I have plenty all over, some from normal childhood scrapes, others evidence of my fight against ill health. I don't even really remember which scar on my body came first or how old I was when I got it. It's not something I dwell on and I have never really looked into the mirror or looked at myself and seen them as flaws or imperfections, if anything I most times forget I have them till someone else points at them or notices them.

But then I had the mastectomy.

I can't even really explain why the M scars are different, they certainly aren't the first visible scars in that area of my body, but there is just something about them that sometimes makes me sad. Maybe it's that they are a constant reminder of the loss of a part of me, however imperfect and riddled with illness that part was, it was still me...born with me, grew with me...or maybe it's that I can't help but compare that fake part to the other still natural part, and though it may be perkier, though it may look slightly more perfect, there is still something quite unnatural about it all.

Whatever the case may be, I am still yet to see these particular scars as a part of me...to be ignored like the rest of me.

But the one thing I do see when I look at them is that come what may...I survived!

Ire kaluku o lowo Eleda lo wa, Oluwa ko ma gbagbe mi...

Fear is a funny thing isn't it.

I remember being afraid of so many things as a kid and desperately waiting to grow up because in my child mind, grown ups weren't scared of anything.

And now I'm all grown, I'll give anything for the fears I have now to be my childhood fears.

I'm not scared of the world ending on a specific date arbitraly chosen by some religious nut like I used to be as a child. I'm not scared of thunderstorms. I'm not scared of being alone in the house. I don't jump at creaks in floor boards or slammed doors. And whilst I am concerned about world troubles, I don't stay awake worrying that world war 3 is about to happen right this minute.

Grown up fears are realer than all that, these aren't the fictional monsters hiding in the dark, under the bed, or in the closet. These are real monsters that whisper that they will overcome no matter how much you pray, plan, work hard for (or against depending on the situation).

It's the temptation that draws you in again and again, the world that moves faster than you, the hamster wheel you can't seem to get off, the uncertainties, the blank mind, the blank future, the losses. The threat you'll be overwhelmed, be consumed, be destroyed or at the very least, be left desolate and empty.

Grown up fears don't disappear in daylight or sunny days, we have to handle them..how do I handle mine? The only way I know...trust, faith...one breath at a time.


Title is a line from Ebenezer Obey's 'Ori Mi Koni Buru'. Loosley translated from Yoruba the line simply states a prayer asking God not to forget the person saying it and that everyones blessings (good fortunes maybe?) are in the hands of God, and in that vain I repeat...

Oluwa ko ma gbagbe mi.

Xx

Tired or Lazy? The SC conundrum.

Yesterday I went to see a friend on the other side of town. I don't drive so journey was via a multiple assortment of trains, buses and passing through several stations to connect. Took roughly about 3 hours door to door.

I came back home, managed to eat a lil something and then crashed...hard!

Struggled to wake up this morning...not refreshed at all. So thought let's take a bath, soak the tiredness and stress away, listen to some music, sip some ginger/chamomile tea, use the opportunity to throw some conditioner on my Fro...and just chill.

Well it's just taken all in me to wash the soak off, wash the conditioner off and towel down. Since I am still laying here with one towel wrapped around me and one wrapped around my head, I guess we can say I am in worse shape than when I went into that bath.

NB - it doesn't take much to tap on iPad whilst lying down...no strength being exerted but mental.

So the question - is it the SC, did I push too hard yesterday, or even during the week. Or am I just lazy and out of shape?

I must admit this is a question that has plagued me all my life. Because there are days where I wake up so exhausted...even as a child I would wake up tired with no way I could explain to my folks why I was tired, what I did to make me so damn tired.

And I would frustratedly feel like since I have no cogent reason for being tired, maybe it's just laziness.

Notice how I had to explain that I had a tiring journey yesterday to sort of justify my tiredness today....when truth be told I was tired before said journey.

Now my HB when last I checked in early September was cruising at a cool 9.8% which my fellow sicklers know is a fab level to cruise at....so why tired?

Haven't the foggiest idea but now that I've caught my breath, let me get to putting some cloths on.

Could you call on Lady Day, Could you call on John Coltrane...

Maybe not but tonight I'm calling on Gil Scott Heron.

Not so much to wash my troubles away but to remind me of the girl I used to be...and yes girl...because the person I want to recall is teenage URO or even twenties URO.

The girl with curiosity, who wanted to know everything about everything, whether important or not. The girl who watched one Ali fight and decided she needed to know everydamthing about him from Cassius Clay to Nation of Islam to Thriller in Manilla, who hunted down every article, book, documentary she could find and soaked up the information...just because.

That's the girl I want to recall, the girl I haven't been in quite a long while. I can't pinpoint exactly when or where I lost her, it was a slow process to disinterest and disillusionment, to just existing and making the moves, running around that hamster wheel called life.

But I want to find that girl, I miss that girl, I want that girl back.

And as I sit here listening to the music of Gil Scot Heron I feel a flutter of hope that maybe just maybe there's a little bit of her left in me. A little bit of her that this music, this almost for me meditation seance like inducing music is calling to her, whispering to her, encouraging her to come out and play.

Let's hope so.

Title is Lady Day and John Coltrane by Gil Scott Heron...my fav music by him is the cliched choice - The Revolution Will Not Be Televised...

But I also really like Home Is Where The Hatred Is, something about that song and it's message of how hard it is to escape a situation just speaks to me.

xx

I know you've got a little life in you left...

It's been such a long while since I have been here.

Not from lack of want or desire but maybe lack of creativity.

And maybe overestimation of my need to document my M journey. Which is still ongoing by the way, nipple reconstruction and asymmetry coming up next month.

To be honest I am not sure I want to be here...writing this eve. I have no topic in mind, no burning issue to document or ramble about.

But here I am typing, in the dark, on my iPad, listening to a playlist on Spotify...Maxwell currently up...This Woman's Work...if you couldn't tell by my post title.

Listened to Arrested Development a lil while ago, Mr Wendal & Everyday People....classics...whatever happened to them by the way? Fantastic lyrics with fantastic tunes.

On that note, whatever happened to music? I find my iPod and other portable music devices filled with playlists consisting of old tunes, old classics. For crying out loud, I've got Gladys Knight & the Pips and Nina Simone on one of my playlists.

And is there any current hip hop tune as beautiful, yes beautiful, as The Message or Rappers Delight? I think not!

I have also been listening to a lot of Fela. I know the Naija music scene is hot right now but I am not a fan of music simply consisting of hot beats with very little, if any, conscious lyrical content. Of course I am sure there are some exceptions...when you find them, do let me know.

Give me Fela, the two Victors (Olaiya & Uwaifo) every damn time.

So Groove Theory's Tell Me just came on...lordy I love this song. Someone I could sing this to right now but that's another blog post.

And on that note...it's goodnight & God bless x

P.S - feels quite nice to be back writing even when said writing is just a stream of consciousness.

Pump up the volume...

Today is 21 days post mastectomy.

But this post is not about today. It's a delayed post about day 16 post-m.

Day 16 was the day of my first expansion/inflation session.

I probably won't explain it very well but see...during my operation, they also started the reconstruction process. So as well as removing my breast tissue, the docs also inserted the implant with a port attached to it. Now imagine the implant like a deflated balloon, that will slowly be filled with saline over a period via the port. So on my chest, under my scars, I have the implant and just below I have a little bump that I was informed post-op is the port.

Now when all this was explained to me by the breast nurse weeks before the operation, I for some inexplicable reason assumed the port would be outside my skin, so imagine my shock to wake up and see the bump is under my skin...my skin is covering it...over it...the port cannot be seen...hmmmm...how the heck are they going to access that crap??

That was the question that was running through my mind for the 16 days till the first fill me up session. I mean the thing is under my skin, so my rational mind tells me, to access it one must first penetrate my skin. And as a thirtysomething year old sickler with a number of surgeries under my belt, I like to think I know a thing or two about medical personnel penetrating my skin to get at what's underneath...veins, arteries, tumours etc. All methods hurt.

So looking at the port hiding bump it seems that what they are implying will probably involve a needle that will first need to go through my skin.

For the love of....

Does the pain and abuse never end???

So I wake up anxious and apprehensive on day 16 and make my way to the Macmillan Cancer Centre UCLH with a brief stop over for Cuz S. I needs her support for this next stage.

After an hours wait due to miscommunication between the desk lady and I, Cuz S and I proceed into the examination room.

As usual Nurse S is her friendly chatty reassuring self but I's still anxious so I ask...okay okay demand....that Cuz S brings her hand for hand holding duty.

Nurse S laughs and promises that it won't hurt, yeah like I've never heard that one before *rolling eyes emoticon*, and she proceeds to locate the bump and insert the needle...

It.does.not.hurt. AT ALL

Well....

No pain....

Not quite sure how to deal with that, all that build up and no pain....but I thinks I can work with this, especially as my next session is booked for the next week.

I go home all happy and relieved....then that evening....BAM pain pain pain.

Damn the breast hurts....like a bitch...for days.

Ah well....they never said it'd be easy. My journey continues. 2 days till next session.