YOU’VE got great colour. Have you been on holiday or out in the sun?

I guess you could say that. True beam radiation holidays isn’t quite the same as cycling through the Alps but it does give you a good tan.

My days now seam like one comatose sleep with a few hours of awake time to get zapped.

Week No 5 has come around so fast. Only two weeks left till I can get control back and start to live life again. Or so I thought!

As I lay on the machine this week I was thinking I have lost another five months of life since I went into hospital in November. While I have reframed it into a positive and used my time to study, in my heart I know that I have lost the chance during that time to do what I really love. Getting outside and on my bike.

There is no sign of me getting on my bike this week, the level of radiation in my body now is pretty high and I know I am going to get worse before I get better.

My skin has changed on the surface so I can only imagine what it looks like underneath. My cells must be wondering what has hit them.

I know some healthy cells will be taken a lot, but as long as the cells that are causing this tumour are getting a hard time then I can handle this level of discomfort.

When I sat down with the doctor this week to check in, he told me we have to be careful with the skin as I am getting more radiation everyday and the skin is soft around your neck.

This is when self care is so important, taken care of all the small things, making sure I put on my E45 cream, keeping my vitamin drinks up and listening to my body and not fighting the sleep.

But what really hit me was something else that he said: once you finish treatment it will take another month to recover. I guess I shouldn’t really be surprised as getting zapped to the neck is a pretty intense process. But I am already desperate to make up for lost time.

I crave the chance to feel healthy again, waking up and feeling like I want to jump out of bed and seize the day. Instead I am often waking up unable to really talk and dragging myself to the bathroom to try clearing my throat, which is not a pleasant experience. And soon just finding myself back in bed for another round of sleeping.

What makes this extremely challenging is you can’t stop. I have never quit something in my life before but I feel like I could easily quit now.

Last weekend I managed to eat and it felt like heaven. I was so hungry but the pain of swallowing has been such a horrid experience that I didn’t want to eat.

Now the meds have kicked in I can swallow with less pain but the taste in my mouth is disgusting so I don’t really feel like eating.

However on Saturday I peered into a restaurant and thought I really need to eat. It was quite a posh looking place and I tried to walk in quietly as to not draw attention.

“Is it ok if I come in to eat,” I ask the lady. I looked a mess. ‘Absolutely sir, please follow me,” she said.

I sat down, almost collapsing onto the seat, to look up and see that the people opposite me were looking in shock that I had been let in. You know that look, ‘why are you in here?’ ‘Did someone give you some money for food and now we have to look at you.’

For me this was a lesson on how easy it is for the human to judge. To judge when you don’t know what someone is going through.

It was then like I had not eating in weeks, which was true. Salmon and melted sweet potatoes was a dream.

I try to disconnect from my environment to stay in control but it’s got to a level now that I often just want to close my eyes and think back to what it felt like riding my bike than facing this.