It's been a while...
What have we been up to? Mostly university stuff. Oh.... and not having any treatment...
I'd like to say that cancer has vacated our lives since the no evidence of disease, but it hasn't. It is still with us everyday. Perhaps not every min of every hour but hourly at least. The Sword of Damacles feeling if you will?
We had been getting back into some form of routine, our new normal, and I was feeling quite well.
I have been able to be the old me for a while, collect the children from school, feed them and clean up after them. It is funny really, I used to moan about doing all this stuff, I am glad I am here to do it now. Not being able to do it would mean that I am unwell and that does not figure in my current plan.
Lately I am bloody angry. Angry at the Bastard. I need to shout at it, tell it to F**k right off. It appears to be omnipresent. Every bloody ache and pain I think it's back or it's somewhere else. I hate feeling like I am on borrowed time. People in my cancer support group are passing away from this horrid disease and it makes me sad. Friends that are affected are losing their battle. I am sad that this is happening. That we cannot cure this and so many families are affected by it.
Everything I do is tainted. Stupid stuff like brushing little Miss H's hair while drying it and wondering how long I will be able to do this for? Watching our little twin boys grappling with speaking, will I see them through to a full vocabulary? Packing our eldest son off on a school trip, will I be able to do this again? Imagine thinking that every time you do a lovely thing it could be your last. It's bloody exhausting.
I have a cystoscopy coming up, for the uninitiated that is a camera into my bladder, they are changing my stent but they look at the cancer too. I am dreading them telling me it is back. I have been in a lot of pain again recently with my bladder and nerve pain in my right leg. I keep telling myself it is the stent, they can cause irritation, but brain won't believe me. The nerve pain I find harder to explain away though....that was where the pain was coming from before they diagnosed me. I am off to see Dr Oncologist at the end of the month too, I think I have cracked and I am going to ask him for an earlier scan, not sure my nerves can wait until August.
Being a devotee of Facebook is a bit of a double edged sword too, as I already mentioned I am in a support group for fellow sufferers. It is nice to hear good news but so very sad to hear bad news. I have my mummy groups who continue to support me and distract me but then just when I think it is safe Timehop side swipes me. That little reminder of what you posted this day last year. Except this time last year I was in agony and I know that the anniversary of diagnosis day is looming. Next month we will have lived with the Bastard for a year. I suppose I am lucky I made it a year?
Cancer you are getting on my nerves. You are robbing me of my confidence, peace of mind and sanity.
Gosh. This is a moany, angry blog isn't it? I didn't intend it to be. I guess that I have been chewing on all this inside for the past month or so and not blogging has meant my usual outlet has been blocked. Lesson learnt there, venting is cathartic.
But it would be wrong of me to let you think that I live every day so negatively, I don't. There are good things happening all the time. I appreciate people on a far deeper level than I did before and I am far more forgiving than I was before cancer. It does have a positive impact bizarrely. I never thought I would thank it for anything. I have also signed up for my second year at university, how fab eh? Considering when I began this academic year back in October last year I had no idea that I would be able to keep up let alone be in the position where I am looking at completing the year! I am nearly there, the road has been rocky and times I felt like dropping out but I didn't, cancer didn't stop me in fact it drove me on. I am incredibly proud of myself for managing to keep hanging in there even when I felt so ill I just wanted to stay in bed all day rather than hop on a train to Sheffield or sit through a tutorial. It has also provided me with another set of really supportive friends, invaluable when I have felt at my most befuddled and out of depth.
We also bought a house and moved all six of us whilst I was under treatment and are now settled in, again Cancer didn't stop me in fact it is down to cancer that we have the house. I would give it back tomorrow if it meant I didn't have cancer but I do so I choose to see that the house is a good thing we gained from going through this shit. I have also found that gradually I am able to talk about the future more and more, the near future given but the future nonetheless. What is that saying? 'It is better to take many small steps in the right direction than to make a great leap forward only to stumble backwards' It is amazing how far you have can come with those little steps when you do look back..
I know I may seem like the perfect enigma, hating cancer one minute then being thankful the next but that is the reality as I see it. It is hard but there is almost always a positive spin you can put on everything just sometimes it is hard to think about it, cancer doesn't need to dictate your life to you, I promise. You don't need to ignore it, acknowledge it but tell it is does not define you and adapt your life and live it.
xxx
