I had good news on Friday: the tumor is singular, the chaotic cells haven’t spread yet to any lymph nodes or (as far as we know) other parts of my body. The vast trees of scenarios, including the ones involving me updating my will stat, folded back into a few of the more positive branches.

The proposed treatment has changed to chemo first, surgery after. The plan is to shrink the lump as much as possible, to make the surgery as minimal as possible. I’m all for removing as little breast as possible.

Surgery still has to happen though, because they remove the bit where it all went wrong - I assume the mad genetic codes will still be there even if most of the bad cell are killed off - so the bit around it must go.

Anyway, I can now start worrying about the details: what to do when my eyebrows fall out! Weirdly that bothers me more than the head hair. A face without eyebrows is terribly naked. The cancer uk website has guidelines on how you draw them back, but I’m not convinced. Now wondering if there are eyebrow toupets/wigs.

I announced it to my colleagues this week (obviously my manager and HR had already been notified). They’ve been really nice, and also nice in not being in my face about it. Really, between my over-affectionate family and work people being good, I’m pretty lucky.

Now waiting for the actual treatment to begin, and the actual discomfort to start. In the meantime, I can and will pretend everything is normal.