A not so fun journey back to myself.

So I guess I’ll start where everything starts, at the beginning.

I suppose the beginning in this case will be my previous life, all our previous lives, before Covid.

I was a tattoo artist with a beautiful, happy shop. I worked with inspiring, complicated artists and wonderful clients everyday. I had a partner I loved and three little dogs and life was perfect.

In 2019 I said to my coworker, Bruce, “If I had to die today I’d be happy. I’ve travelled all over the world and achieved success in my career. I have three properties, one of which being a recent purchase in the countryside in Swellendam. The dream home! I have a gorgeous fiancé and I really feel I have everything I’ve always wanted.”

At this time my partner and I were planning our wedding.

Friends and family were flying in, accommodation was booked, we had the venue, the outfits and I couldn’t wait for my dad to walk me down the aisle like in the movies.

I was working every day I could to pay for deposits and decorations meanwhile doing free nipple tattoos for breast cancer survivors, which was a passion of mine and something I felt gave my life purpose.

This all sounds like a dream right?

I kept saying I’ll lose a few kgs for the wedding and I’ll cut out booze for a couple months so I decided to start exercising and ditched the wine in preparation for our big day.

My fiancés brother who lives in South Korea had mentioned something about a flu in China he was worried about but we just carried on as normal.

One month before our wedding, countries started closing borders and flights were cancelled.

Suddenly our family and friends couldn’t make the wedding and my dream of being walked down the aisle by my dad dwindled when he told me he wouldn’t fly from the UK in case he got stuck.

We reached a decision to postpone our wedding. Any bride will know how traumatic this is, not just because your dream is being crushed but because the money spent is gone. Most of our suppliers and the venue honoured our deposits but we were broke and essentially living off credit cards, my savings account and day to day work to get by.

Lockdown. 3 weeks they said. This turned into 3 months. Three months of rent, mortgages, salaries, car payments and good grief the fighting to get into level 3b.

I started a fund for the tattoo industry to help our community survive and received very little support. A few special peers came on board and we all worked day and night to build a website, promote the fund and started an NGO.

At the end of the day everyone who applied for funding was paid out. A measly R200.

I soothe myself by saying at least we did something while everyone was closing up shop or bitching but it cost me.

In June 2020 I had a shower.

I felt a lump. Not a small lump but a biggish lump. Right boob.

I got into my PJs and sat with my love in the lounge and he immediately asked, “what’s wrong angel?”

“I found a lump.” I said and raised my arm so he could feel it.

Yes. Its there. It’s real.

I waited a week or two until I asked a friend to feel it. She is a doctor and put my mind at ease but said I need to have it checked.

So I waited another month. I went to the doctor and he said I shouldn’t worry but I should have a mammogram so I waited, and waited.

The lockdown was lifted we were back at work and I was far too busy, besides we we planning a new “Covid Friendly” wedding in December so I’ll get all that done then go for a scan.

The wedding was truly magical. I had fallen off my health wagon during Covid so I was a few kgs overweight and my dad still couldn’t make it but we had the best day, followed by a lockdown honeymoon in Franschhoek with all the wine farms closed down and struggling. We spent 3 days in the swimming pool and just kissed and laughed and slept and..

Fast forward to May 2021. I had a back piece to start. My customer had booked two consecutive days and the Tuesday morning came along but he didn’t. No show.. for two days?! What to do? I know. I’ll go for a mammogram cos honestly this “fibroid” is starting to hurt a bit. I mean everyone has told me cancer doesn’t hurt so its definitely just a fibroid, besides my doctor said it feels fine, just fibrocystic breast disease but I’ll get points on Discovery for going for a scan so may as well now I have the time.

I don’t want to go into detail about the mammogram or that day because honestly I can’t even write down what I felt, but it wasn’t a fibroid and suddenly my world imploded.

Cancer.

Chemo.

Surgery.

Radiation.

Medication and injections for 5 years.

Stage 2 good survival rate, “You need to have hope.”

Slow growing but an aggressive type.

Worry but don’t worry.

“Not a death sentence.” But could be a death sentence.

“Roll with the punches, Tamar.”

6 months off work.

Yes you will lose your hair.

That no-show saved my fucking life.

My husband and I went on a Pre-Chemo vacation to Swellendam. I wanted to be there, where my house is, in case I didn’t survive, just to watch the sun go down and breathe fresh air and prepare myself for what was to come.

Nothing can prepare you.

The first chemo I endured is lovingly nicknamed “The Red Devil.”

It is bright red, makes your wee pink and makes you feel like you are dying. This is infused straight into your vein along with anti-nausea meds and steroids.

The first time I sat in a “chemo chair” I lost it. My husband had to sit with me to calm me down and I had to have a pill to chill me out.

I was crying. In disbelief that this was happening to me. All the TV shows and movies that use Cancer and chemo to scare you playing through my mind.

My beautiful cousin Billie, dead at 27 from a brain tumour. We were so alike and now here I am taking in this poison to kill me so I can survive.

And nearly killed me it did, four times.

I had to take an injection home to administer into my stomach to force my bones to make more blood.

Every second week I would go for a blood test to check I was alive enough for the next round.

My husband had to help me to the bathroom, he had to feed me some days.

I realised after the first month it was better to sleep so I just took stilnox after stilnox to stay asleep.

I lost all my hair. I lost a lot of friends who perhaps didn’t know what to do or were too scared to check in.

The few friends who stayed in touch made us food, visited on good days and helped us with basic chores.

My mom was a saint. I don’t know what I would have done without her.

The second chemo, Taxol, was weekly, so every Saturday I would go have my blood checked and every Monday I would go and sit and have this stuff pumped into me.

Its derived from a tree in the Amazon so I felt a lot better about this drug.

It also didn’t make me feel as bad, perhaps just tired and weak a couple days of the week, but by this point I had no energy anyway.

I managed a couple days at work on this drug and we even moved house with the help of a good friend, but I had to skip a week because I couldn’t get out of bed for a few days after moving.

Being bald made me feel ugly. All my femininity was stripped from me. My eyebrows, my eyelashes, everything gone.

I never got used to seeing myself in a mirror so I just stopped looking in them. Instead I got into a routine of pushing my body on good days.

Hiking, swimming, cleaning, gardening, painting. Anything that would wear me out so I wouldn’t struggle to sleep. I lost 10kgs and it became a habit.

My infusion was Monday so the steroids would kick in on the Tuesday and I would work it off physically by deep cleaning the house, going to the gym, writing, thinking of ideas for movies, books, sitcoms, swimming, walking the dogs, going for a hike.

Wednesday I would feel bad. Nauseous and weak. I would sleep for two days then I would work Friday and Saturday and repeat.. for 12 weeks.

Meanwhile my shop was being managed by my team but slowly falling apart. You cannot leave a business unattended by the owner. The owner has the vision and grounds the team so fights were breaking out. Petty squabbles and personalities conflicting all of which I had no control over, and was starting to realise I didn’t care about.

The shop wasn’t clean, there was a “toxic vibe”, the team were unhappy and I was at home trying to get through a day at a time.

My husband would go in and help to improve the mood but the problems persisted.

The small profit the business was generating was helping us survive so I had to resolve a few conflicts and show my face but I started becoming my main focus and other peoples problems started to feel pointless and annoying.

All I wanted to do was spend time with my husband and my dogs and work on my house. I had no interest in work or tattooing or even art at this point.

My friend Lauren and I went up to Swellendam to prepare the house for a new tenant and just rested and dreamed of a simpler life. I felt so at home when we were camping out in our 1905 farmhouse and just gardening and cleaning and chatting all day. I lost my love for tattooing that week.

It had crippled my body with pain and completely taken over my life and it was this week I realised I wasn’t a tattoo artist anymore. I was so much more than just that.

I am a healer, I am a lover, I am a comic and an artist, I’m a friend and a wife and a body that can do all sorts of crazy things and tattooing is just one of those things. How boring to only do that one thing?

I don’t want to be known as Tamar the tattooer, I want people to know my soul.

My surgery was quite crazy. My stay at Kingsbury was used in a staff reckoning that I won’t go into but 3 days of my life were utter hell.

Staff who were utterly unfit to administer care and cockroaches, I shall say no more.

The minute I woke up from surgery I knew something was very wrong.

I couldn’t lift my arm past 45 degrees.

My lymph nodes were removed and I had heard this can be painful but I was worried. How would I be able to work with a crippled arm?

Well, turns out you can’t. 9 sessions of excruciating Physio sorted out the “cording” (look it up) in my right arm and to this day the top half of my right arm and shoulder remains numb due to nerve damage.

This is common and not a mistake on anyones part, I just wasn’t aware this could happen.

After the surgery and a few weeks of physio I regained some mobility. My wounds were healing and I was now ready for radiation. Yay.

Every day for 4 weeks I had to walk into what can only be described as the Starship Enterprise and strip down to be exposed to radiation on my very sore, still healing right boob.

I would go there before work and just carry on with my day like nothing happened.

That’s the thing with Cancer. You have to just carry on and everyone else is the same but you’re not.

You have to maintain this facade that you’re being brave and strong and that everything gonna go back to normal but it doesn’t. It never will.

During radiation I had marks on my chest.

The radiologists would draw marks on my boob, chest and armpit with a sharpie and I wasn’t allowed to wash that. Soap couldn’t touch it. I couldn’t swim, bath or have a long shower in case my skin burned from contact with the water.

I feel like this part of treatment made me feel more exposed and vulnerable than the chemo did in some ways.

I didn’t want Pete to see the marks so I would try not to undress in front of him. I would feel shame if someone noticed a mark while I was out with friends.

I’m different. I’m not like everyone else. I’m diseased. Sick. It’s serious.

During radiation my hair started to grow back. It was fluffy but I was so proud of it.

By Christmas I had a full head of fluff and decided to attend a party with my close friends without a wig or scarf. It was a BIG deal.

I wore reindeer antlers and a red dress and couldn’t wait to finally be able to have a bit of fun without the shame of the dreaded headscarf. I thought I looked like I had a shaved head.. kind of cool and edgy.

A couple hours into our lovely gathering, none of the girls had brought up my illness or even mentioned my hair and one of the girls boyfriends decided to crash the party. I was in a corner backed into the pantry while he greeted 5 or 6 gorgeous ladies then turned to me and immediately said,  “Oh my god! Do you have Alopecia??”

I pushed past everyone and ran outside to breathe. I almost thought I’d pulled it off.

I just remember being stoic. The other girls were livid and he was of course very apologetic but I didn’t say much after that. I just wanted to melt into the floor and disappear. I think I got extremely drunk and told my friend to dump him, but apart from that I was just humiliated and numb.. and very very angry.

Once the radiation was done I felt I reclaimed my life a little.

I was able to swim again and immediately started snorkelling every week with friends.

This turned into something I had to do for my mental health as it can be very meditative.

Concentrating on breathing, keeping your heart rate down, staying calm and relaxed in all conditions is still something I struggle with so why not do it underwater in even more, in the sea which is something I’ve always been terrified of.

Besides an injection every 3 weeks that stops my periods, and a tablet I will have to take for the next 5 to 10 years my life went back to normal.

I went back to work, My hair continued to grow, I kept up the swimming and exercising, but I was in a constant state of fear. Some days I would just cry, all day, unable to pull myself away from the trauma and fear.

I started to think I would always be this frightened, fragile victim. Crying the second someone mentioned cancer, or told me a story of someone they knew who had died. I would instantly think,  “That’s going to be me. I’m okay now but I’m still going to die from this.”

I could hardly keep my work life together let alone my private life. My husband would try to pull me out and make me smile but I just couldn’t escape the fear and the anger. Why me?! I’m a good person! I’ve always tried so hard to help others and care for animals. It’s not fair!

And it isn’t fair. It just is what it is.

It was at this point I started meditating again. I incorporated TRE into my daily routine and started pushing my body and mind gently towards healing.

I started saying, “NO!” to negative thoughts and fear.

Slowly, over months, I began to heal the trauma.

I found new friends, I explored new places, I touched a tiny shark.

I discovered Buddhist Philosophy and started to realise there is no death, only life, only the here and now. This freed me from the fear.

I still have moments of fear and memories of my illness but it doesn’t control me now.

I still enjoy my wine, but I don’t judge myself for it.

I still say and do ridiculous things but I don’t ruminate on it.

I still tattoo, but it’s not who I am.

When people ask me how I am now, I say I’m amazing.

Not okay, or fine or doing alright. I’m amazing. I have a brand new brain thanks to the chemo. All the cells in my body are new. I don’t think the same way about anything anymore.

I want to know EVERYTHING.

I want to do EVERYTHING.

I don’t want to waste time getting to know people, I want to be best friends now!

I don’t put off a painting or a walk or a swim or a chat with a friend.

I don’t get grumpy in a queue or in traffic.

I don’t have a bad hair day. Every day with hair is a good hair day.

I am excited for the future and no longer crippled by the past.

I am here.