It's Bowel Cancer Awareness month in April and we are sharing Laurel's story.
Laurel, known as 'Writing Lola' on the Online Community has been using writing to help cope with and navigate a bowel cancer diagnosis and treatment.
We really appreciate you sharing your words, Laurel, so we will hand over now to your voice.
In the city where I live, the marking of the Chinese Lunar New Year came with a riot of colours and costumes, lanterns and illuminations, dances of lions and dragons. I looked longingly through the exciting programme of festivities, knowing that this was yet another thing I couldn’t contemplate attending. My body, coping with another harrowing round of chemotherapy, could barely manage making dinner that night, let alone face the effort of getting dressed and leaving the house. Feeling broken and worn down by it all, the idea of a ‘new’ year seemed alien and unnecessary; just getting through the next few days felt like a mammoth task.
In the midst of this current struggle on my cancer journey, my friend sent one of her regular checking in texts, complete with a little morsel of something to make me smile. “It’s the Year of the Snake! Isn’t this lovely?” she asked, listing the attributes this new year was expected to hold - balance, resilience, rebirth, renewal, and more. For a moment, the veil of my fatigue lifted; my friend had piqued my interest and given me pause. I spent the next hour reading about the Year of the Snake and relishing its contradictory nature. Symbolising the yin and the yang, the snake represents both darkness and light, with its mystery and danger balancing the regeneration and positive transformation that it is said to bring.
The snake’s duality seemed to connect with my own feelings and so, armed with my scribblings, I sat down to write about what this meant to me. About to finish my treatment, the unfolding year offers the welcome possibility of getting back to some sort of normal life, whilst being clouded with the prospect of tests and monitoring to see if the treatment has worked. I feel the need of the people I love and who have supported me to focus on the positives, the chance to move on in some way, to get back to living. And yet, my mind and body hold tight to the scars which have marked me and the darkness that lurks at the edges, always waiting, always there. Navigating these feelings of darkness and light, of fear and hope, is a constant struggle. But, for me, writing has offered me a way to embrace and accept them – at least some of the time. And as the Year of the Snake begins, I have been reflecting on how writing has given me a sense of release and renewal.
I didn’t start using writing as a coping and healing strategy until a couple of months after my diagnosis of bowel cancer. Looking back, I realise I was in a state of shock for most of this time. It was only as my surgery approached that it suddenly became real. As the full force of my emotions came into sharp focus, I realised that I needed some sort of outlet for them and so, I began to write. I wrote haphazardly in a journal on my laptop, sitting down to write on days when I felt the need to record my experiences or vent my anger and frustration. I tapped out words, phrases, poems in the Notes app on my phone. I scribbled in a notebook in the middle of the night when I couldn’t sleep, as the sheer weight of my fear overwhelmed me.
Often, my writing was messy and raw and dark. And, at first, I worried that by giving a voice to my darkest, most vulnerable thoughts I was making it even more real, that I was somehow sealing my fate. But I have come to understand this writing in a different way. What I found was that by committing these thoughts and feelings to the page, I could acknowledge them and then let them go. What was happening to me was already real, and the fear and anger that I felt was also very real. Writing about them didn’t change that, but it did give me some sort of release from them. It was as if the process of writing somehow took away some of their power.
I am not under any illusions that writing about, with, and through my experiences has been some sort of magic wand. When the darkness comes, I write to release it from inside me, but I know that it will come again, and I will need to write it down once more. But each time, it does feel cathartic: I have let go of it and can face the next day.
It has felt, at times, like an impossible task to be able to find a sense of renewal during my journey with cancer. I want desperately to believe there is a chance for this transformation, this new day, but I can’t let go of the nagging feeling that it may be a foolish hope. When I look ahead to this Year of the Snake, my first thought is, “Will it come back?” But I realise that I am thinking about renewal in a huge and expansive way, and that this is not very helpful. Instead, I am trying, through my writing, to hold on to small acts of transformation, small wins.
When I write now, I think of it as something that transforms and renews me in the moment. If I am struggling with my fear, my anxiety, my anger, my pain, then my writing gives me a dumping ground for it all and I am renewed simply by having given it a different space in which to exist. When I am trying to focus on finding moments of joy, writing about them reaffirms and renews my sense that they are still there, that they still exist in spite of everything. At times of confusion and frustration, writing down all the questions in my head often helps to transform the muddle into a sense of what is really important to me. But, most of all, each time I write I am renewing my sense of who I am: I am not my cancer, I am still me and the words on the page are my voice.
And so, in this Year of the Snake, I would encourage you to pick up a pen, open your laptop, or grab your phone, and write. Write anything and everything: single words, phrases, questions, lists, diary entries, records, poems, stories. If you’re angry, write your anger. If you’re anxious, put it into words. If you’re in need of a smile, write something joyful. Take your experiences and give them a voice, give them a space where you can acknowledge them and then let go. And hold onto that moment, that feeling of renewal and transformation, no matter how small or fleeting it is.
I am leaving you with the poem that I ended up writing to try to capture what the Year of the Snake means to me. I love writing poetry and get a lot out of creating poems which reflect an aspect of my experiences with cancer. But a lot of my writing has been much messier and chaotic than this poem might lead you to believe! You might also enjoy playing about with words on a page, but if you don’t, please don’t feel that writing is not for you. Quite simply, whatever you want to write and in whatever way, it is important, valuable and valid. It is your voice, and they are your experiences. The most powerful thing about writing for me is the process of putting something on the page, and I hope it is something that helps you too.
I Wear Red
Under the light of a new lunar year, I stand,
Expectation pulled taut in the lines of my hand.
I wear red with intention stitched into the seams,
My own self a beacon that beckons me into its beams.
But I pause in spite of my readiness, my need,
Caught in fresh moonlight I am both unbound and received.
Moonbeams reveal shadows as darkness shrinks from its sight,
Damp earth cools my feet as I bathe in its translucent light.
I know what is coming when I step away from this place,
The shedding of all I have gathered in resilience and grace.
Bright jewels are now tarnished, feathers crumpled and split,
Red scarves torn and tattered, my skin no longer fits.
I must steady myself to move on and let go,
But fear this transformation that I do not yet know.
Who am I now, that I dare to hope for rebirth, for renewal?
Can I claim wisdom from a journey that has been nothing but cruel?
I stoop to gather damp earth in my hands,
Taking its dark reminder with me as I travel on to new lands.
The way opens up and sighs to break free,
A duality of the darkness and light that has made me.
I take one last lingering look before turning my head,
Casting off, reaching out in a flurry of red.
Thank you so much to Laurel for sharing. We hope you have enjoyed reading. If you would like to read more, you can also find Laurel's personal Online Community blog - Words, pathways, journeys - here.
Further reading can also be found in our earlier blog 'Writing for healing'.
Read more about Bowel Cancer Awareness month on the Macmillan website.
Find stories from people under 50 and diagnosed with bowel cancer.
If you would be interested in sharing your writing or cancer story for a Community News Blog, please do get in touch with the team at community@macmillan.org.uk.
