Ok it's time to say hello, I was too shy before but you sound like a friendly lot. I'm Sarah.
I found a huge breast lump which had been hiding in my right boob in October 2021. I thought 'that's a cancer, and it's spread'. My 2 week referral took a month while I wet myself with worry. Two weeks later I had a diagnosis of a cancer, thought to be contained. Lymph nodes came out clear. I was told the 'good news' while sitting in front of the breast care nurse with the massive ascites that had come up, excruciatingly, overnight (size 12 belly becomes 5 month pregnancy between 9pm one day and 2am the next). I'd gone to A and E (of course) in screaming agony and terror. After waiting for an ambulance (19hrs) and waiting to be treated (12 hrs) I had a CT. Due to COVID, I was alone when at 2am the doctor woke me up and told me that my liver was full of some sort of cancer. I thought, well then I am f*cked. Pardon my language but it's the only term fit for it. This was Christmas 2021.
Long story short, by Feb 2022 I was pronounced end of life by my GP. I was just worn down by it all and had deranged insides. But by the skin of my teeth I survived a brutal chemo regime long enough to frighten the cancer just a little and I started targeted therapy in July 2022, having turned 50 in June.
I never ever thought I'd still be alive now. Hooray, say the innocent. But they miss the point. My partner and I had a few weeks of great relief and joy in the summer, but the drudgery and the unremittingness of it have been hard to bear this winter. All is grey. I am having to accept I am in it for the long haul now, be that the couple of years I'm given by my oncologist or longer if I am lucky. I am now able to feel really very upset and bereft about it all. I am very upset about not having old age to look forward to. I do love life but I just do not feel vital. In health I would be rudely fit right now and achieving much. I do not feel well like that. I feel like I am about to pop a gasket. Or grey. Or I have the sh*ts. Or I feel tired to death. Or I feel lardy on account of all the comfort eating I'm doing. Or I am asleep for enormous lengths of time. Or can't sleep.
Which is what brings me here, I'm looking for my tribe, I feel very alone. I don't quite belong in the land of the living like my friends and family do. However much they may suffer because of my illness, they have life in its fullness. So I need friends in the twilight zone.
You have hit the nail on the head Sarah!
Oh Faulty Towers would have been infinitely more salubrious!
