Lessons in life (otherwise known as 'what cancer teaches you')

Cancer has taught me many things, things that perhaps none of us should need to learn but I do believe it has made me a stronger person. Not in that awful clichéd sense of the word but simply that you have to find some sort of inner strength to deal with having cancer, its treatment and the life you are left with after active treatment is over.

The experience of having cancer has taught me that carpe diem is a truism, most especially if you have the kind of poor projected survival rate that I have. I am trying to learn that the day is also something that can slip from your hands no matter how hard you try to seize it and that I shouldn't consider it a failure if I don't always manage to catch it because there will be other days. Yes, I can say that cancer has blighted my life but I can also say 'I'm still standing' because I am, even if there are days when standing is hard.

Cancer has also taught me that not everyone is able to deal with you in the same way they did before because cancer is scary and they don't know how to treat you or what to say, and as a result they slowly fade out of your life. I was surprised and quite shocked to discover the hard way who those people were but there is nothing I can do to change that and that is a failing on their part not mine. It is easy to feel bitter and indeed, a keen sense of loss, but in the end you have to just be grateful for those who stayed to make the journey with you because they are the ones who count the most.

I think we have a preprogrammed, almost primal fear of cancer and what it can mean regardless of what the prognosis might be. People shy away from you because on a very basic, almost subconscious level, they are afraid it might be contagious. The dreaded C-word is a stark reminder of one's own mortality. Also cancer is something that happens to other people, not to us, our family or our friends. The shock of that and what it means is often enough on its own to make people take a step back.

I hate the fact that awareness of my own mortality has been thrust upon me in such a brutal manner but it also gives one a great deal of focus too. It's learning how to make the most of that focus that helps you deal with the rest - mostly.

When will I be me again?

There are days when I feel like cancer has swallowed up my life, my world, my entire being, leaving me a poorer version of the person I used to be.

Where is the colour, where is the life, will I stay frozen like this forever?

But wait. . . 

I can feel the warmth of the sun shining down on me, telling me that yes, one day,

I will be me again.

Reflections

A year is a long time in anyone's life and for most of us it just flies by as the minutes, hours and days flow ever onwards. There were times last year when I felt that my life was stuck in slow motion as the days of chemotherapy dragged themselves by. At the very nadir on days when I didn't want to go on, it was a nightmare that there seemed no chance of waking from. My worst nightmare came true when in the space of an hour I went from slightly unwell to dangerously ill as the treatment designed to save my life was actually attempting to kill me. (New readers who want to know what happened can read about it here)

Coming so close to death can teach you many lessons, not the least is of course 'carpe diem' but that would be to over-simplify things. My brush with death and having to live with the knowledge that the cancer is gone for now but probably not gone for good, has taught me many things. It's certainly made me appreciate the simple joys of a pretty flower, a beautiful sunset, a stunning view. Life is precious - it is not enough to just wear it, you need to live it whilst you can!  Not quite as simple as it sounds but it serves as my mantra on good days and as a quiet reminder on those that are bad.

Cancer has stolen many things from me, things I will never get back, things that we all take for granted, things I took for granted. I am struggling to deal with that loss, to find a new path to walk. One that involves sunshine and showers instead of the cold dark rain. One that makes the insistent voice of fear a little harder to hear. I will never learn how to ignore it but I will learn how to turn the volume down.

My spirit maybe bent but it hasn't been broken.

I may still be having nightmares and flashbacks,

but I am here,

I am still standing

and that's what counts the most.

Sadness

Tomorrow I will be hopping on a coach to travel 200 miles to stay with my mother. Ordinarily something I would be very much looking forward to but sadly it is to attend the funeral of my aunt who recently died from breast cancer. She had been ill from secondaries for many months so it was not unexpected but it has still been very hard to deal with because once again I am faced with the horrible consequences of having breast cancer. It will be a very emotional day for all of us.

This is the 4th member of my family we have lost due to breast cancer which somehow makes this loss even harder.

I am hoping that it will be a bright sunny day for the funeral because my aunt was a bright sunny person who particularly enjoyed Spring.

Rest in Peace Barbara, gone but never forgotten.

Standing in the rain

The amazing power of something small and trivial, and its ability to create havoc with your emotions.

In my hand is a small rhinestone hair slide. It's pretty, sparkly and a symbol of everything I feel cancer has stolen from me; a stark reminder that I am damaged, scarred and hurting both inside and out.

A tiny thing but still big enough to allow reality to sneak through my defences and bring my world crashing down. I have lost so much and I am struggling, floundering, flailing around trying to find a way forward, a pathway through the darkness back to my spot of sunshine and warmth.

Where is that sunshine dammit? Why am I standing here crying in the rain?

The anguish I felt when I happened upon the hair slide was overwhelming. Somehow it really did sum up all that has been consigned to the past, because right now I don't think I'm ever going to feel comfortable and happy with the body that breast cancer has left me. Once upon a time I would have berated myself for vanity but it really isn't as simple as that. As a performance artist, how I look is an intrinsic part of who I am, both on stage and off and it is not the person I see looking back in the mirror. I ache for what is gone, not just because cancer rewrites the path of your life whether you want it to or not, but the fact that even the simple pleasure of putting a pretty slide in my hair is denied me. Well, yes of course I can still put a slide in my hair, but it is not the same because it doesn't add a touch of glamour or frivolity, all it does is emphasize the fact that my hair still isn't growing back properly and that it doesn't look like my hair.

So here I am.

It's raining hard.

I don't have an umbrella and there's no shelter in sight - it's going to be a long, cold night.

Sigh!

There are times when I feel like cancer is stalking my life just for the hell of it! Why? I asked my GP to look at what I thought were some areas of obstinate eczema only to be told that I need to see a dermatologist as they looked 'suspicious.' Suspicions that were proved correct because today I have a diagnosis of 4 skin cancer lesions one of which is stage two! Luckily none of them are life-threatening in the way that breast cancer is but none the less they all have to be excised, so I will have yet more scars to add to my growing collection of such things.

I've been worrying about all of this for a while and this is the main reason why I haven't posted in a while. I am going to remedy that from now onwards and will make the effort to post more regularly again. I have been involved in writing projects for other things and that's also taken up a fair amount of my time but all apart from one of those is coming to an end this week.

Distraction therapy

I have decided that I need some small projects to work on to stop me from worrying about the possible skin mets and what that might mean. As a result I made the decision to do two things; sign up for a course in jewellery making and join Blipfoto.

I have made various types of jewellery on and off over the years, particularly when I needed specific things for a dance theatre piece because I could tailor it to exactly what I needed and mostly it cost less too. I've done a lot of bead embroidery out of necessity either again for something that would have been hard to buy or to repair costumes I already own. I've never had any formal training in any of this though, so I thought a foundation course in jewellery making was a good place to start. I mainly worked with wire and that's what I want to focus on. The course starts in a couple of weeks at the local college.

Blipfoto is something altogether different.

This is a daily photo journal with a difference - you can only post one image per day. I've made a commitment (mainly to myself) to a 365 day-in-the-life-of project to record my recovery from last year. Some of it will be intensely personal and reflective but it will also feature an appreciation of the little things in life. It's an opportunity to share those moments that we usually take for granted, whether it be the first flowers of Spring, a pretty view or a piece cake bought as a treat. Although I'll have to be careful that there isn't too much cake buying! :)

You can follow my photographic adventures here - OndineBlue at Blipfoto