Before I started my cancer treatment I decided a cancermoon was a good idea; A break away before getting bogged down with all the appointments, surgeries and side effects. The diagnosis had turned life on its head, all plans went out the window and everything I had in store for the year, and life, needed to be reassessed. A break away was definitely in order.

Well, now the surgery is done and appointments are still coming thick and fast I felt another break away could be justified. So with Chemo only a few days away I decided a ‘chemomoon’ would now be added as an essential part of the cancer schedule!

There were only 2 free days before the chemo appointments started so an elaborate luxury holiday was of course out of the question. So where is my favourite place in the UK? Well Alton Towers of course! (I will find somewhere different to go for the Tamoxifen-moon)

So yesterday it was back up the M1 to let my hair down (proverbially speaking of course…). This time there was no CBeebies land, no children, just 2 days of adrenaline fuelled rollercoaster rides!

Naturally there were some concerns over going on high impact rides after breast surgery (none of them were mine). I was confident my airbags could withstand the rollercoaster harnesses and G- force. But to allow my mums eyebrows to lower to a more natural position I checked with my surgeon first.

The surgeon questioned why a 36 year old woman would want to spend 2 days going on rides but medically and physically speaking said there were no issues. It’s 6 weeks post op so everything should be fully settled and I should be returning to normal activities now. Well whats more normal than hurtling at break-neck speed on the Worlds most looping roller coaster??

Obviously I couldn’t go to a theme park on my own…that would be weird! So I enlisted the company of my equally immature theme park buddy Matt. There used to be a group of us that would go to theme parks at Uni but over the years they started to fall away like lame ducks. Only Matt and I have been able to maintain our enthusiasm for 20 years!

It was a great couple of days. The park was practically empty so we didn’t have to queue for any rides. Matt eats quite healthily so I didn’t have to share my pick n mix with anyone. The sun was shining but not blazing. The Rekordalig cider was perfectly chilled. All in all a perfect couple of days!

The only slight error was going on the 14 loop roller coaster ‘smiler’ immediately after a plateful of cheesy nachos with all the trimmings. Still, you live and learn.

When I think about it, my reason behind the cancermoon was to get away from cancer for a while and enjoy life as normal. Everything had been such a shock and cancer was just EVERYWHERE. I needed to get away. That wasn’t really factored in to the chemo-moon though. Cancer has settled in to my daily life now. I don’t really think about it. Its like when Facebook change their news feed. We all go up in arms for a few days about how horrendous it is and can we really use it like this?!!? Its a OUTRAGE! Then after a few days we start to accept it until eventually we can’t even remember what the old one was like. Thats pretty much me and Cancer.

So until chemo brings about any change in the status quo, there really wasn’t any need for a chemo moon. Other than to have an excuse to go to Alton Towers without the kids!

But hey, I do have cancer. So I’d better start planning my next ‘moon’….