Author: Anat F C
I went on a very well earned holiday.
It was promised to me the day I was diagnosed by my husband. "Pick whatever you want,we can go wherever,you just need to finish that shit!!!".
Needless to say,this 'shit' will never be over,it will always be in the back of my head....
In my last meeting with my counsellor, before I left ,it was agreed that it would be interesting to see if I'm capable not to think about it.
I failed!!!...
I constantly think about the philosopher Kant, that said:" you can never step into the same water twice." No,I definitely can't!!! I will never be the same person. When I put my foot in the sea,I thought to myself,this hair never been to the sea, these boobs never been to sea and this person has never been to the sea...
This person has never lost a friend to the same illness that she had/has...
Last week we went few of us to a shiva. For the ones of you don't know what it is, it the Jewish seven days of mourning after someone dies. Our friend Rosie,had passed away. She had breast cancer that had metastasised to her liver. She was one the most special people I have spoken to, we never met. We all celebrated her life with some sparkly,the way she would have wanted us to do.
One of us said:"we should live our life to the fullest,we don't know what can happen tomorrow,we could be hit by a truck." This is something that every cancer patient always hear from everyone.
I said:" I can tell you I'd be fucking angry if after all that a truck would kill me!!!" So since chemo I'm very careful while crossing the road. But I will definitely live my life to the fullest!!!
This person has entered the see today...
Author: Sarah
I'm still here, please don't fear.
I need a friend someone on whom I can depend.
I don't need much, just fun and such.
The treatment may be rough but I've got that I'm tough.
Please take heed to what I need.
Friendship gives me wings to fly on the day every inch of my body cries.
A coffee, a walk, a call it's enough to help me stand tall.
I won't ask, I won't call, I won't tell you I need you but you can be sure that I do.
Just for now please do the giving, I'm trying my best to just do the living.
If you can't talk about the scary C, well that's fine just come and have a cup of tea.
Who knows the future neither you not I. Imagine how you'd want to feel and please try.
Cancer hasn't killed me, please don't kill our friendship.
Author: Sarah
Eight months ago I felt a fairly integral part of the general population and certainly of my own middle class mostly incredibly fortunate community. I have always been a bit of a mild mannered anarchist at heart and my style is often to purposely choose the barely beaten track. Looking back on that now I couldn't have chosen a wilder less trodden path than the one I'm now on if I'd tried.
Now I am not a depressive or dark character I am actually a very upbeat sort of a gal who tends to just keep going always at a steady unrelenting jog. But lately my thoughts are more complex, an insidious oil slick of colours, hues of grey and black but with rich and vivid metallics in shades of green, purple and blue similar to the dramatic and all seeing eye of a peacocks tail.
The day I finished chemo I started to write, words just started to seep from my mind. I will admit to always having had a severely under occupied intellect and thus a very cluttered and busy mind, for the past few years I have been tending contentedly to my children, their education and my husbands career, my mind a relentless melange of varying philosophies, business ideas and unwritten theses. With hindsight the knowledge (I say knowledge as I had already been a cancer host for at least 18 months prior to diagnosis) of my breast cancer meant my already crowded mind quickly reached capacity and all new thoughts had to find an outlet. I'm sure this is why I started to type that day six weeks ago.
I love my life, I really do I am one of the most fortunate people I know, yes we've had health, money, business, parent and relationship issues but who hasn't that is an integral part of the pattern of life but I love my life and I am incredibly content in amongst the humdrum of my everyday existence. But what is missing now since my diagnosis are a significant number of my friends.
I have become slightly estranged from many of my friends over the last few months, some due to their apathy, some due to their lack of strength and maybe some due to my apparent phenomenal strength and independence. I have found that after the stomach blow of disappointment and the anger that many of your favourite human beings have almost inevitably it now seems let you down I am left with what can only be described as perhaps a mild resentment towards "the innocents".
The strange thing about this is that I'm not resentful that "the innocents" don't have cancer, not at all I wouldn't wish that on anyone or anything. I'm not bitter or angry that I did or do (I'll never know which it is unless it rears it's head again. I am currently classed as no evidence of disease the sometimes elusive NED sought by many cancer hosts). I seem to resent the general population or many of them for their insipid apathy towards all that makes them feel uncomfortable and it would appear that now includes me. It is difficult for them apparently to know what to say or what to do. They don't want to say the wrong thing, they don't want to ask or is it really that they don't want to know. They don't want to face the terrifying prospect that one day the sucker punch wall of life can throw you one almighty blow you won't even see coming, that is until you realise your nose is clearly broken due to the unmistakeable taste of blood in your mouth. I cannot comprehend this foolish but conscious choice to be so complacent. To pretend that life isn't fragile and precious, to risk all this by thinking out loud enough to be heard, "it won't happen to me". How dare they, why do they believe they are so different to me? I have never committed any crimes against humanity of any sort, I have always tried to be a kind person. I try to forgive. I always ate my greens!
I often look at "the innocents" the ones I know and feel that they show a blatant disregard for life! They occupy themselves with such triviality rather than face the real issues of life that can shape and change your character and make you feel truly alive. Have they not stopped to see, to learn the lesson from me, any one of them may already be in the same position just blissfully ignorant thus far and even if they are not, any one of us could be lost today to misfortune such is the fragility of this wondrous life. Having said that I do not mourn the ignorant life of before I do not envy "the innocents" I am happy in my new awareness, I just wish to continue in this new found state of awe and wonder for the rest of my natural days.
I am truly sorry if I embarrass them, I'm sorry it's hard to find the words but neglect is disrespectful and I have been upset and angry to have been sidelined and in fact forgotten. I forgive them all for they are indeed "the innocents"
I'm not currently dying and as a friend I have so very much to give. I am in fact so very much more alive than "the innocents".
Author: Sarah
Today has taught me the true potential of the human heart. Since I joined the young breast cancer network my heart has swelled with true love for all the other women in the world going through what we do. There is no sense to any of it other than the stark black and white of life and death. True success I now believe is acceptance of the miracle of life, finding the ability to treasure our time on earth and find peace with our fate whatever that may be. Not handbags and cars. I cannot believe that there can not be a higher calling for us for there must a reason these fantastic young women with so much to give are needed elsewhere. Our road is incredibly difficult, I use an analogy of old fashioned warfare, we are a troop, we stand and march together, we pick up our fallen and carry them for as long as is humanly possible. We grieve and mourn together for fallen comrades. This is not modern life as many know, it is a sometimes grim reality that's requires true grit but it is now our modern day reality. It is lucky my heart has swollen and grown so much because I lose a piece with every beautiful soul we lose.
We will carry each other for as long as we can allowing each other to have as much time as we can with loved ones and when one day that is not enough we will free each other from guilt and torment and allow our souls to fly free from pain and anguish reassuring each other that no matter what we ate or have done we did not invite this!
Author: Sarah
I know a gang of girls
They'll give anything a whirl!
The bravest bunch you'll ever meet.
Keeping up with them is no mean feat.
Their backgrounds are to put it bluntly diverse
Some of their conversation topics distinctly perverse
They challenge themselves mentally and physically every day
They keep going on and on come what may
They take risks with what they do
and what they put their bodies through
Not much is out of bounds
and they are always prepared to break new ground.
They forgo their femininity
to prove the strength of women you see.
Their hairstyles ever changing
their depth of character amazing
Theirs are lives lived at a hundred miles an hour
Life at this speed rarely makes them sour
They are made of such strong stuff
a quiet life will never again be enough
Imagine life permanently on a rollercoaster and you'd be getting there
These girls are so very alive that of death they're well aware
Adrenaline junkies never fearing the end....
No think again my friend
No youthful frivolity risking life on a whim
These girls really feel every ray of sun on their skin
They'd never risk it all on a dance with chance knowing what they know
and they always give everything that matters a second glance to remember it just so
They may be soft and frilly
but are also strong and gritty
A force to be reckoned with,
yours a perception to be messed with
These girls would challenge you
they run deeper than you ever do
I know what you're thinking
what sort of girl you're envisaging
Well you'd be so wrong
so very very wrong
With youth you'd be right
But try as you might
you won't ever guess what moulds these girls and makes them shine so bright!
A gang of girls I bet you'd like to get to know!
Well please read on and consider what's below
The thing that has tried or is trying to take their lives
Is what makes them walk a path that seems to be paved with upturned knives
These are your mothers,
your daughters, your sisters, your lovers
Living with or overcoming cancer isn't a fight try as you might
An adversary not to be beaten, cancer of lives makes light
These are not always pink princesses
desperate to return to blow drying their tresses
but neither are they joyless victims
devoid of all that life brings
They live, they love, they laugh and they cry
but despite the best medicine can do some of them still die.
They are the largely unknown,
they don't publicly moan.
They are often forgotten, let down, ignored and left feeling socially drowned.
So how do you feel about these girls now?
************************************
Younger Breast Cancer Network
This post refers to the Younger Breast Cancer Network UK - a support and chat group for young women with a breast cancer diagnosis in the UK.
For more information see the YBCN Facebook page.
You can also follow YBCN on Twitter @YBCN_UK
Author: Sarah
I have been cheated and let down, this thought causes such a heavy frown.
The stress I feel to those around me seems so unreal.
They still see their bodies as unfailing machines. Whereas I have faith in not one part of my body it seems.
Sleep is a blissful respite but on waking I begin to feel the fright.
This society of blame and claim has not helped life in the cancer game.
I seek reassurance even though it comes without insurance.
My caring consultant cannot deliver what I crave to calm my imagination for fear of litigation.
But two years believing there will be years galore would free me more than ten believing there would only be four.
It has already happened I am the scenario unlikely so how do I face a new freckle and believe I am not the minority.
Each day brings fleeting aches, new symptoms all creating mental earthquakes.
The internet has become synonymous with the devil in my head. A prophecy of doom lies on every thread.
Day to day life is all in all back to normal but how do I know which new fear I make formal.
My doctor I'm sure views me with both pity and disdain I feel unable to visit again and again!
Where does that leave me? The scar still remaining mocks me daily with its lumpy irregular formation.
Daring me to roll that dice and risk missing what could so cruelly happen twice.
If my husband betrayed me I could chose to remove him from my life. It's not so easy when what betrayed me also sustains my life.
Author: Sarah
I'm still here and I don't mind at what cost
But still I grieve for the life I've lost
The hopes and dreams of yesterday remain
But now are tempered with fear and restraint
I long to dream of getting old
But tempting fate is just too bold
Relationships become strained
Thoughts of death on conversations rain
Fear has stolen many friends
Illness and treatment to isolations tends
No evidence of disease does my ears please
But friends have blown through with the breeze
The distance caused by what I'm not clear
Lack of kindness I'm sure not, perhaps it's fear
Each day passes much the same as the last
But how I long for the days that are past
Carefree coffees, aimless shopping
But friends they rarely do drop in
What should they say, what should they do
My answer to that just be you
Will it change I do hope so
For life without friends is terribly slow
I don't talk cancer all day
Please come we've plenty to say
The weather, friends, clothes, food, shoes and men
All topics I can cover again and again
Just be my friend if you're finding it hard
Drop me a card
I'll understand and appreciate your view
But please come visit me do!
