The title came from a friend of mine who received her first cancer diagnosis around 2003. She described tying, untying, retying her boot as her doctor used a bunch of words that didn't make sense to her at the time, she was in so much shock. How clinical it had all been while she obsessively just tied, untied, retied her boot over and over again. I kind of wish I'd been there to smack her doctor upside the head. In any event, she called three of her best friends, who got her so stoned on pot to her her deal with the shock and fear, she literally thought 'Cancer, schmancer'. It was so ace, I remembered it all these years, long after she managed to survive cancer the first time, long after it came back with a vengeance and she eventually died.
I've been sick for decades; gone from being a promising amateur bodybuilder to someone who can barely cross a room without falling - with people always offering helpful advice on how I should just exercise and eat less. I've been told so much guff about going vegan/meditating/eating turmeric/finding God over the past decade and a half when what I really needed was a diagnosis and medication, I'm kind of blasé about cancer.
I mean, I get it; to people who aren't sick, being sick is terrifying. I should know - a lot of friends and acquaintances disappeared when I was ill and no longer able to be spontaneous. It's like they thought RA was contagious, and they stopped calling, stopped visiting. I'm currently housebound, bed bound most days. Trips to the doctor's office are usually the only times I leave the house.
I have so many symptoms, so many things RA falls under, I just was told to learn to deal with it, and anything that falls under 'womanly complaints' hasn't changed since my great-grandmother's day. You get a leaflet and a 'good luck'. So I got used to not bothering to ask for much. Cramps? Good luck. Clotting? Good luck. Anaemia so bad I needed iron infusions? Well, as my nurses say, 'maybe I don't need as much iron as other people'. The fact I had to eat red meat 3x a week just to be able to function and had stopped driving because I couldn't focus anymore was just...one of things. Hey, ho, you have a chronic illness. Good luck.
So when the uterine scans happened, and then I went in for a coil, and heard the word 'biopsy', I didn't think anything of it. It's just another test. It wasn't till I mentioned it on my Twitter feed that people, who literally have become quite used to my regular issues about pain/fatigue/etc with my chronic illnesses...they freaked. 'OMG, are you ok?' 'OMG, thoughts and prayers'.
And all i could think was 'Where the heck have you been for the past 13 years? Does it matter now because it's a cancer test? Why does THIS matter when the past 13 years didn't? Why NOW? Why am I suddenly a super-hero?'
I realised this morning: I'm furious. I'm legit angry. I have been dragging myself through life for over a decade and a half (I had a good seven years without any diagnosis at all, when I was just told to lose weight and exercise more). I have been a 'super-hero' all this time. I've been on chemo medication for five years now - chemo medication I knew I would need to take for my entire life, just to keep my illness in check, an illness which has no cure, which is progressive, and which will more than likely end up killing me one way or another. But because cancer may now be added to my illnesses, NOW I'm suddenly a Brave Warrior? NOW people suddenly treat me as the instantly inspirational - about how my being ill is suddenly of value. I’ve had a chronic illness for almost 20 years and I spent half that time being told I was a scrounger and a fake. Now I’ve got cancer and I’m suddenly a hero?
I swear, if this is what it is, and if it plays out the way it feels it will play out, I am going to be the most selfish cancer patient EVER. Because I have spent years of my life being the inspirational martyr in other people’s minds. I am not your inspirational anything. I will eat all the desserts. I will drink all the drinks and eat all the chocolate. I will hand off care of my son to my ex-husband who, for the first decade of our son’s life, didn’t want to be ‘inconvenienced’ with his care. He can be inconvenienced now. I want to see all the sights, I want to do all the things and go all the places (or as many as I can get to). I want the beautiful wedding and the pretty photos and a romantic honeymoon. I want all the stuff no one ever managed to get done because they were too busy. And I may be able to do none of this: I don’t do surgery well. I don’t heal well, and my system is already sorely screwed. How much could I scratch off before I couldn’t do any more?
Well, maybe we’ll see.
But ‘inspirational’? ‘Positive thinking?’ Being a ‘Warrior?’ To hell with that. To hell with anyone who even dares say that to me. To hell with sudden concern after years of indifference, because their main thought is 'At least it isn't me'. To hell with suddenly being validated. I am human, messy, sometimes brazen, loud, coarse, fierce. I'll cry if I feel like crying, laugh if I feel like laughing, and I don't really care if that fits into the proper 'inspiring patient' viewpoint people have.
Cancer, schmancer. It's just another thing.
