I joined Macmillan when I had just finished my treatment for anal cancer back in 2011. I was a bit lost and didn’t know who I was and at that point whether I had a future or not. They were tracking ‘innumerable’ liver lesions, my lymph nodes and a nodule in my lung as well as the tumour site I had lost my confidence after being positive and silly throughout my treatment and was floundering out of my depth. My friends and family somehow thought great you are better now, back to normal and I wanted to be normal and get on with my life if I had one but then what did I have? Plus a whole pile of side effects and fatigue to deal with and a looming operation to put me back together even if the cancer didn’t spread or return.
Anal cancer is rare. The anal cancer group was empty when I joined. I wrote a post and held my breath wondering if I would get a reply and would they tell me to shut up and stop being silly…but I got a lovely reply from someone who had been through it a couple of years ago. No one currently in my group. So, I wrote a blog and got some replies. They made me smile. I wrote a few posts in a few places like Dumb things people say and found the perfect person at the perfect time. A lady called Sunny Leith.
Sunny was heaven sent (except she didn’t believe in heaven) and we chatted and joked and just found my soul mate and then we set up a thread called ‘For those with a warped sense of humour warning no punches pulled’ after we got worried that our humour and silliness would upset others on the other threads. I wrote my blog called ‘Bummer…!’ and the comments kept me going through those hard few weeks and months.
We laughed our way through the waiting for results and tough times and planning funerals and slowly we found others who found their place and joined Warped… and we became a family. The Macfamily and the circle closed round and we loved and laughed and shared. I got good news in that there wasn’t bad news 'so far so good' and started to build my life back and started phasing back to work. There was a post criticising us and Sunny left the site. I kept in touch with her via email until her death a year ago this month. I still miss her. Slowly the others got better and left the site and lived their lives and some became real friends in real life and others via email and facebook. Warped eventually ran out of steam (and the earlier posts stopped making sense when Sunny deleted all her posts when she left) and as we recovered and started to live our lives, the posts became less about cancer and more about other things and then I knew it was time to say goodbye to it and tucked up in the background for one day someone somewhere who might need somewhere to see the black humour in cancer to help them.
I thought about leaving the site myself but then another operation kept me around for a bit longer and then I was asked to be a Community Champion so I stuck around to give something back to a place that saved my life. My ‘living life’ if you see what I mean. I was lost and Macmillan helped me find myself and my confidence and what I needed at the most vulnerable time in my life. I felt and still feel I have to give something back. I hope I have helped a little bit along the way.
But I have found myself slowly withdrawing from the site over the past few months. I am finding that cancer is not the white noise it once was and I am forgetting it in-between the check- ups and all that and as I am defying the odds and seem to be doing ok, and livers and lungs seem to be ‘freckles on the inside’ I am back at work full time and living my life in the new normal that is far better than the old normal. I am finding it hard to reply to posts some days especially the new and scared ones as I think I am getting too far away from it after a couple of years down the line you lose a connection with how it was somehow.
I now know what is important and I know this might sound off but am grateful that I got cancer. It saved my life. It saved it in how I live it. And Macmillan and the wonderful Macfamily I met on here helped me find it. Who knows what the future might hold but that goes for all us cancer or not and I feel blessed to have been given the opportunity to see what life was about before it was too late if that makes sense.
I can never quite put into words my gratitude to those people who helped me. I can't name them all and I will feel bad about naming some and not others but there are two special people who touched my heart and just 'got me' who are not here anymore so...
This post is dedicated to my two dearest of friends Sunny Leith and HilaryB who both died too soon. Others also have died along the way but most of them are out there living their lives and a few are still here helping others and giving their time and one or two still kicking that cancer up the arse good and hard. You know who you are. Thank you. Each and every one of you.
I have spent a couple of days with my ‘inside out friend’ that I also met on here. Last time we met cancer was top of the agenda. This time it wasn’t. Our lives are moving on and cancer is taking a back seat. It confirmed something I have been thinking for a while now….
It is time to go. It is time to leave.
I need to be able to forget the cancer in-between those 4 monthly check ups and I am getting too far behind to remember now to help others. I think this is the natural course of events. People get ready to leave and we wish them well on their way happy that they are going. It is right. It is how it should be. New people are here and helping and supporting each other and that is how it should be. There are new people in the anal cancer group picking up the reins to help and I feel I can step back and let them do it and slowly fade into the distance…. With a big fat smile on my face. It is time to go. Of course there is a sadness and a wrench too.
So, I am not going to close my account and I will pop in sometimes and will still get private messages and who knows what my next check up in December might bring and I might be right back here, but for now and today and this week and this month, I shall step back and say Goodbye. I will pop in from time to time but I won’t get emails by the dozen every day and I won’t be worrying about replying to posts and I will step down from being a Community Champion and I know that I am leaving things in the safest of hands.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart my dear dear Macfamily and thank you to each and every one of you for showing humanity at its best.
When we face the un-faceable and manage to stop to help each other along the way, that is something magical and powerful and wonderful and something to celebrate.
I wish you all courage and love and laugher.
And of course the biggest of Little My hugs
Little My x
