Hello,
You can call me Xakkai (Zak-Kai). I am a 17 year old, autistic transsexual student who was diagnosed with a rare soft tissue sarcoma cancer during hte middle of the UK’s first lock down during the global pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-COVID19. Please go to this link if you have any concerns about COVID & the symptoms: https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwjtsJyEn-zvAhU-hv0HHXXKBQAQFjBCegQIexAD&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nhs.uk%2Fconditions%2Fcoronavirus-covid-19%2Fsymptoms%2F&usg=AOvVaw3-44YlwqvauZ36IPRLXI0Y
Everyone reacts differently to the news!:
My instinct at hearing the words “You have cancer” wasn’t to cry. I’m not trying to sound tougher than i am. But i didnt cry. It took me weeks to realise i almost died!. Basically i was suspected to have had my cancer inside my leg for the past 6 years. Course it being a slowly growing cancer, i didnt think anything of the lump, i am accident prone, i fall all the time and have had a fair few runnings with hard swelling!. That’s what i thought it was, some swelling that didnt heal yet. If anything i didn’t cry, because my mother’s reaction wasn’t to cry. you see if you’re reading this as a parent or patient, the thing that keeps people strong is crying yes, but its the people you cherish. My mother was there whilst the rest of the world beat me to the floor, and then she’s just been slapped with a wet fish to the face saying “Cancer”. Yet she didn’t cry.
Reenactment :
Doctor: Your biopsy came back quite quickly actually, and you have cancer
(Silence)
Mum: is that his leg (Points to computer) is that the tumour, thats awesome can i get a photo. I know its sad ‘n’ all but thats an epic photo!
(everyone laughs)
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whether you cry, scream, smile, laugh, joke, collapse, sing, clap, stare blankly everyone reacts differently. To be honest, i knew that if i got told to come in earlier than the given date for the biopsy (3 weeks for a result) it wouldn’t be good. Got called in within 2-3 days. I prepared myself for the worst. I got the worst. But was able to laugh it off!. I also found something that gave me hope. 7 boys in a kpop band, you probably guessed right, BTS!. Right hear me out, I am a kpop fan as stated in my bio. Yet people dont seem to understand the impact of BTS. Whilst getting driven for a hour to the hospital for my results, i listened to BTS. Even though they’re speaking an entirely different language, i knew what theyre saying, mainly because i studied Korean 2 years before i even found kpop, and i memorised the meaning behind their lyrics. They’re empowering, they’re educational, reflecting and to some degree declarative, demanding that you recognise that you ARE you!. I found something to distract myself from myself. That is one thing i would recommend to people who are newly or even oldly (IDK the word for this context) find something you enjoy, find something you can do to distract yourself from yourself. For me its art, languages, kpop. For others it maybe food, maybe even finger painting, movie watching, just try to find something for you so you’re no longer trapped inside your own head, suffocating yourself over something that you can’t control!. You ARE you!
THE VERY WORST PART OF THE DIAGNOSIS:
The worst part by far would be the realisation. Not the realisation i have cancer, but the realisation that i have been living my life wrong. I was always the kid that people hated!. Naturally i had the love from my mother, but not the love from society. Since birth i struggled, i was prematurely born and told i wouldn’t live past 4 years of age, now I’m going to be 18 and defied the doctor. (I ate too many apples). As well as that, i have been severely bullied for the past 13 years of my life, from the beginning of going into education up until my first year in college, i was physically, verbally and psychologically attacked by my classmates, to give you an idea of the type of things they’d do to me, i would fall asleep in class and my classmates would have written dots on my arm with written below it ‘cut here’. They’d push me down the staircase and say ‘Damnit didnt break ITS neck’. I remember this one thing very vividly to the point i still cry and get angry over it, one of my classmates got dared to show me how to cut my wrists, so they grabbed a ruler told me it was a knife and showed me how to cut my arm. I struggle with so many mental issues, due to those people, some of which i am medicated for. The diagnosis made me realise that i was living my life for others. When shopping for clothes i would always buy clothes that would satisfy others and not me, i would always walk out the shops regretting why i didnt buy that anime/kpop shirt, or those army shorts. I always bought no print plain clothes that nobody could nit-pick. I would never change my hair style to a style i liked because, the style i had meant i didnt get picked on. I lived my life which was at the time of this all happening slowly being decreased by the tumour growing in my leg, i lived for other people, by other’s expectations and not my own happiness. . .
That is the worst part. You think only negatively, you think only about the things wrong with your life. For me my exact thoughts were:
- Premature birth,
- lost brother
- mental issues
- bullying
-autism
- Cancer during a pandemic
HoW mUcH mOre CouLd PeOplE TelL mE I Am WoRthLeSs?!?!? (How much more could people tell me i am worthless)
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i cant really tell you how to over-come these feelings because it will be biased towards you and your needs, you and your situation. I cant tell you to sit back and take a breath because for some on here maybe even reading this, breathing is like dying. Some people are dying on here. So i cant tell you to do something that may not help you. I am not going to sugar coat and i am not going to hide anything. More importantly i am not going to give you false hope. For some reading this hope is one thing they have. The only thing they may have. So why would i take that from you so you can momentarily smile, when the alternative is you finding your own self and happinesses within your time of darkness, that-, that is the equivalent of a life time of smiles. That is real hope, because you gave it to yourself!.
- Xakkai. My cancer is called: Fibromyxoid sarcoma. <Fibro-mix-oid>, it is a rare soft tissue sarcoma cancer that likes to be picky in where it grows. For my it was in the fleshy part of my right thigh just above the knee, i have been given a 65% chance of it returning but its being treated although its at 70%, except it will return either in my leg again or in my lungs.Or as google defines it as: A low grade fibromyxoid sarcoma is a rare soft tissue tumor that has a tendency to develop in the deep soft tissue of young adults and the potential for local recurrence or distant metastasis. (Source:https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwiej9rfpOzvAhUuhf0HHftzCk8QFjAFegQIEBAD&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fpmc%2Farticles%2FPMC2784966%2F&usg=AOvVaw1hG5r6XFouUTOQb5JxrBjj).
