In the last 8 months there have been times when I have asked where, what, when and how. I have never asked why? Why me? You get told you have cancer, you just say ok now what? I think I never asked why me, because I knew the answer is cancer doesn’t discriminate. Maybe I got this disease because my sister or mother couldn’t have coped if it had happened to them, or I wouldn’t have coped if it happened to them (or anyone else I love). Perhaps this happened to me because I was strong enough to deal with it, but that doesn’t mean it’s any easier to accept.
You can’t spend five minutes in a room with me, tell me that I look good considering and get any idea of what I have been through in the last year. I want to tell people that, despite my smiles I've been tested emotionally, physically and poked, prodded and pulled every way possible. I have been left a shell of my former self.
The fact that I smile makes the journey seem easier to those in my life and I am glad that I exude that, but those people never spent an hour every day on a steel table undergoing radiation therapy, which left me blistered, broken, sore and tired in a way I never thought was humanly possible.
They weren’t there on the days when my family and I wondered if this disease was going to kill me.
They weren’t there for the surgery, when I was told I'd lose my nipple or my breast and that I still might if the cancer comes back. That I will never know what it is like to breast-feed a child.
They weren’t there on the day when I was told I was unique, because I was young. Because I was single. Because I had never had children. That mammograms or testing for genetic breast cancers wouldn’t apply to me. That I was a medical anomaly.
They never stared in the mirror at my patchy pathetic looking head as the hair fell out in clumps.
They weren’t there on the days during chemo, when I didn’t have the strength to walk to the bathroom or the state of mind to take my own medication.
They weren’t there on the nights I cried myself to sleep because the twilight felt a million times more lonely when you’re away from your friends, your job and you had forgotten where you belonged in the world.
They never puked into a bucket with me, watching the anguish in my sisters eyes as she stared helplessly, wanting this to end and to have her sister back, the way she was.
They never sat there with the fertility specialist who told me if I lose my fertility, that adopting an overseas child was a good option as Australian law practically precludes me from selection for adoption with a history of having cancer.
They never saw me cry after hanging up skype from Mum and Dad or Craig or Kate, who told me they loved me and meant it in a more sincere way than I had ever heard before.
They never heard from Mark, who told me for the first time in 20 years that he had no idea how to be there for me right now.
They never knew I wondered why I was deserving of any admiration for just trying to get through this.
They never understood the notion of being surrounded by a hundred people and yet feeling totally alone. Waking in a lonely, single bed, with no man beside me to tell me everything was going to be all right.
I don’t tell you this in hope of sympathy… only that you may get some insight. That some people project an image of strength, but deal with internal adversity every day. I may smile on the outside but that doesn’t mean I don’t have moments of pure despair too.
I met a woman while going though radiotherapy. I was in the waiting area, sitting like I did every day, in my blue hospital gown with a smile on my face, rubbing my bald head, trying to think of something funny to tell the radiotherapy team to help make the day go quicker for us all. A sweet older Italian woman sat beside me. She told me her name is Paula. She asks me where my cancer is and I tell her I have breast cancer. I go on about the indignity of having to get my boobs out everyday for the invariably changing (and often male) radiologists, thinking this will at least get a chuckle out of my fellow cancer patient.
She smiles and tells me that I’m lucky. She has rectal cancer. She says the only thing worse than the actual cancer is the loss of her dignity having to show her ass to the world for the last 6 months and knowing it is all in vain. She tells me with a brave and heartfelt smile on her face that she is losing her battle. I become acutely aware that this is the last time I will see this lovely lady. I muster all my strength to maintain my smile for her and not shed a tear. I am suddenly feeling like the luckiest person in the room.
Take a moment, dear reader, and put yourself in my position. I am a single 32 year old woman with breast cancer, who meets a women with terminal rectal cancer and considers herself lucky?? Please just take a moment.
I sit here on a Friday, aware that the rest of my friends are drinking, laughing and screwing their ways through life tonight - for which I am eternally grateful. I however, find myself trying to accept this lesson from Paula and all the other amazing people (their faces flash through my mind as I write this) I have met over the last 8 months that will lose their fight with this awful disease. Each one of them, someone’s mother, father, brother, sister, wife or husband has amazed me with their will to live and to accept their fate with their heads held high.
I hope beyond everything, that my story provides YOU with some strength throughout your own battles to stay on this planet even just for one more day, because god knows some beautiful people I've met are fighting for that chance.
Please also know this. That regardless of what hand life deals you, that I will be there with open arms, to hear you, to understand you and be there for you unconditionally. Because if nothing else, my beautiful friend, of all my useless questioning why, I was given this challenge to enable me to be there for those I love, as you, have been there for me.
Sound simple? Perhaps it is.
xxx
