Forget and move on, but always remember….

So, last week I walked the Cancer Research Shine night time marathon walk – well in reality I only walked 20 of the 26 miles, it was too much for me!  Not enough training (or any training really!) coupled with some blisters meant that at 4.30 am, after 8 1/2 hours walking I got in a cab!  I was doing it with a group of work colleagues who at various times questioned out loud why on earth we had signed up to do it.  The reason we had signed up was because a few months ago, in the warm comfort of sitting at our desks, just as I returned to work, we thought it would be a good thing to do in celebration of me beating cancer and to raise money for Cancer Research.  I remembered the conversations well, but they clearly didn’t as there were discussions about whose idea it had been and questioning why we didn’t do the half marathon instead ( to be fair a very valid question with hindsight!).  Now it’s fine that they had forgotten, what was interesting was I didn’t want to remind them.   I realised I’d reached a point where I didn’t want to fill in the back sign that said “I’m shining for….” with ‘me’ (I did when I ran the race for life in May though and was proud to). Something was different, I wanted to move on from it all, I didn’t want people asking me how I was getting on, when my next appointment was etc etc.  I finally felt I wanted to move on and forget

But then……..

the exhaust pipe fell off my car today (yes seriously, no idea how, one minute it’s there, the next minute it’s dragging along the ground!). I waited for the Green Flag man to find me (not helped by the fact that I gave him the wrong road name – oops!), while waiting I was getting more and more annoyed about how this exhaust pipe was going to ruin my afternoon plans!  Apparently you can’t really drive a car without an exhaust pipe so I then spent some time this afternoon getting my car to the garage and phoning friends to ask for a lift and to rearrange plans.  Add to this the cat being sick 3 (yes 3!) times on the dining room carpet and i found myself being more than slightly annoyed!

But then……..

I remembered the friend who is giving me a lift tomorrow morning is the same amazing friend who used to pick me up at 7.00 every Tuesday to take me to chemo.  Exactly a year ago tomorrow was my first chemo, this time last year I had packed my bag for hospital and was trying to sleep before the first session, I failed to sleep and was just really scared all night!  When my friend picks me up at 7.30 tomorrow we will be heading in a completely different direction, without the fears, nerves and dreads that I had when she picked me up exactly a year ago, and without cancer!

That put an exhaust pipe and sick cat into perspective!  This time last year I would have given anything to be facing a day without a car over facing a day of chemo – and I still would.

its great to forget and move on, but I never want to forget how lucky I am to be able to move on, and to have all those day to day frustrations and annoyances!  Funny how they can become so precious!

 

The morning after…..

It’s August, it’s raining, and I’m feeling quite deflated (which is ironic considering the amount of comfort eating I’m doing!). But the good news is, this is all pretty ‘normal’!!

I had my first 6 monthly check up yesterday (although its only actually been 4 months and my next one is in 5 months, I guess they ease you into the 6 month thing gently!). I know people had said these appointments were hard, and I’d read people’s stories of how they are a nightmare a couple of weeks before and after, but I had no grasp of how hard it was! Thankfully, I only really struggled 24 hours before, my boyfriend took me away for the weekend before for my birthday and I think that helped.  Tuesday was tough though!  People at work were lovely but kept talking about it as they knew it was the next day so by the time I got home it was all I could think about!  That was nothing compared to being back in the hospital though.  I could physically feel my chest getting tight with panic, I sat and waited in the waiting room where I had been sat a year ago, watching people going in to see various doctors and their lives being changed forever – just so sad to see.

My appointment was fine – all looks ok, just waiting for a test result to come back but they seem positive and confident it’s all ok.  Strangely that’s not the thing at the front of my mind.  The thing I’m most struggling with is how do you live the rest of your life with this every 6 months!??!  It’s like you start building a new life and start moving forward and then – bang! – here’s a reminder of where you have been and a flashing neon sign saying you could be sent back at any time!

Most of the time that’s a good reminder of how fragile life is and how important it is to make the most of every day, but on a rainy day in August it feels more like a reminder of just how sad and cruel life can be.

Today’s little normality test…

So, today I spent some time with a friend (girly lunch and shopping) and I paid attention to how many times ‘cancer’ came up – and it was ok actually.  I think its become the norm in a lot of ways and so whilst we spoke about stuff that has been affected by it (mainly work) we didn’t talk about the cancer itself.  I think I always associate the career changes I’m making with cancer on the basis without cancer I probably wouldn’t be changing, but I guess for others they just see it as a change!

The irony is that it’s so hard to know what’s ‘normal’ and what is cancer related.  My wrist is painful as the tendon is objecting to being back at a desk job (so am I to be fair!) and so it has developed a Repetative Strain Injury! Would I have that if I hadn’t been off work for 9 months?  Who knows!  I’m also anaemic at the moment, apparently that’s quite common too! I’m potentially giving up my job in the city to train to be a hairdresser.  I’m taking garlic, turmeric, cod liver oil and calcium supplements and eating broccoli and strawberries till I’m sick of them!  It’s hard because its like there are these constant little reminders about it all as you are trying to move forward.  Not all of them are bad (I actually quite like strawberries and always wanted to do hairdressing when I was a kid so am excited about that) but they are still a reminder that my life has changed.

The next test for today is tonight’s activities!   I’m seeing my ‘boyfriend’ (I use the term lightly but that’s a whole other blog!  Lets just say its not going well and for once I don’t think the reason is particularly cancer related!)   So, I suggest a country walk, picnic, pub, night out in my local town, just some general relaxed chilled things which make the most of a sunny Saturday!  He wants a night in on the sofa.  Now before there is a barrage of ‘Ah how sweet’, the reality of a night in on the sofa is him playing on my iPad all night while I cook, wash up and provide him with a steady stream of nibbles and drink before he announces he is tired and its time we went to bed, turns everything off and falls straight asleep in bed!   Again, if we had been married 10 years I would get it, but we’ve been dating of about 18 months.  And here comes the test – after everything I’ve been through, and to be honest he has been through it too, surely we should be making the most of our time.  I feel like I’m inbetween a rock and a hard place!  I want to ‘do’ stuff and experience stuff while I can, but at the same time people around me are still very happy doing whatever they were doing before – and that’s great, I’m not knocking it, and people have been fantastic, but I feel a bit like I want to shout ‘come on people lets go and do this’ and everyone just looks at me like I’m mad and reply ‘its ok, you’re ok now lets just go back to normal’.  The thing is the new normal for me is very different!

A year ago today….

….I was told I had cervical cancer!

Sitting here today it doesn’t seem real, either in terms of it being a year ago, or that it was me! But, it was very real and it was definitely me, so this seemed like as good a day as any to start writing a blog about what my life is like now!

During my treatment I wrote a bit of a diary on and off, but generally I’m quite a private person and never felt the need or desire to ‘blog’. A friend of mine had a baby just as I started treatment and a few weeks ago she started a blog about how her life had changed since having her little bubba and that made me sit up and take notice. A lot of the things she described matched how I felt – life has completely changed, and the change feels pretty permanent, some days are easier than others, a lot of things take a lot more thought and time and you struggle to find ‘the right’ way. The main difference was that where she lacked sleep, I had loads and of course that tiny matter of no long term bundle of joy for me.

My aim with this is to just write about the now, I don’t intend it to be about the last year. Although that may come up, but what I really want is to help others who may have ‘survived’ cancer only to find their lives turned upside down and inside out and no idea where to go or what to do next – that’s pretty much how I feel on and off and I’m told that’s common. So hopefully, this will help you know you are not alone, I don’t have the answers but if there is one thing I have definitely learnt over the last year, it’s that there is nothing as helpful as knowing there are other people out there going through the same stuff, and from what I can gather, pretty much every reaction to cancer is “normal”!!!

As today is a bit of a weird day – oddly I feel proud of the fact I was diagnosed a year ago – almost a bit of a “I’ve beaten cancer for a year” mentality. It was a tough year (understatement) but I was told there is no evidence of disease in April and so I’m now working towards a check up in August, another one in January and then I’ll go to six monthly appointments. When I look back on the last year I do feel proud of myself and the fact that I am here now, getting my fitness back (slowly) and generally improving my health. I feel like I’ve actually achieved something amazing.

In honour of that, I have booked myself in for a neck,shoulder and back massage this evening at a local spa – it’s good to have a treat and this one seems well deserved (and better for the waistline than chocolate!)

So, I have no idea where I will be this time next year in terms of work or relationship, but I hope you enjoy this journey with me and we can build lives after cancer together

Debbie x