Acceptance

Hello, all!

I have no idea how long it’s been – and I refuse to look because if I don’t look at it, then I can’t feel shame over it, alright? It’s a system that’s working well for me so far, and I’m going to stick to it. So, apologies, and thank you to anyone who actually keeps up with this darned thing (I say ‘anyone’ like there’s more than one of you. Highly unlikely.).

I had some thoughts and I came across my blog again and I thought that perhaps I would put those thoughts somewhere other than the folder I keep on my laptop for things-that-I-never-wish-to-look-at-ever-again-because-they-were-strange-feelings-I-had-at-one-am-and-I-don’t-want-to-be-reminded-of-how-pathetically-weird-those-early-morning-hours-can-get.

Anyway, I had some thoughts on acceptance this time (oh, aren’t you all just so excited for this one). Mostly on acceptance of myself, really. I’ve reached a point where I’ve found myself fully in my twenties, living mostly as an adult now, feeling adult emotions and wondering where the experiences of my childhood have left me – what state am I now in, and how does it affect my future? What kind of a person do I really want to be for the rest of my life? Because that’s a thing you can change, you know. Lot’s of people say that ‘people can’t change’  and ‘a leopard doesn’t change its spots’ but it’s total crap. People can change if they want to – and do change, in fact, quite regularly. And it got me thinking on the things I wanted to change, and the things that have already changed over the past couple years – the skin that I’ve stepped into. One that was always there waiting for me, but just needed to be claimed.

See, mostly what I’m talking about is how I am now that I’m past the illness. How I am now that I’m so far out that it all seems like some kind of distant dream as opposed to the reality of a good portion of my teenage years. I remember trying to escape it at several points – going off to university, thinking that this was finally my chance to completely shed the cloak of cancer I had inadvertently donned at fourteen. Shed the pity and the embarrassment and the explanations and worry – shed all the parts of me that I thought weren’t necessary. Shed the parts of me I thought were ‘damaged’.

I hadn’t realised then that some of the most beautiful parts of me had been collected during those years.

Don’t get me wrong – cancer has damaged and broken me in so many ways; twisted me so that I can never see life in the same way ever again, made me a more selfish, anxious person, turned me into a careless, irreverent sort of person. But it’s also opened me up in ways I didn’t think possible.

I’m more compassionate, more empathetic. I live life much more aware of the people around me, and how each and every action I make and word I speak inevitably affects something or someone. The world is a study on causality, and we’re all cogs in the machine of it all. We all contribute to the chaos, we all live within the same bubble, breathing in each other’s dust and bumping each other’s lives onto different tracks. I mean, it was always like that, obviously, but cancer is responsible for making me aware of it. Now I know how I can affect others.

For example, every now and then, I’ll say something mean – or think something uncharitable – and I’ll have a sort of flashback. I’ll think back to this moment, that has stuck with me over the past five years, where things started to get truly serious when I was ill.

I was in isolation on the ward, blasted with high dose chemotherapy and pretty much without an immune system to speak of. I was tired, and sick, and I had tubes snaking out of my chest and my nose and arm. I felt like I’d been fighting forever, you know? It was one of those long, drawn out moments that didn’t seem like it would ever end – like I would be suspended in a bubble of misery forever. Like nothing would ever feel truly better ever again, even if I got well again.

My stats were starting to waver, my heart rate was slow, my kidneys weren’t putting out what they should be. Nurses and ICU staff kept bustling in and out, threatening me with catheters and a trip to Intensive Care, and worrying over what my body was doing. Everyone seemed to be at that point – you know, worried.

But for that half an hour before they started to debate putting another tube in me, I finally felt peaceful. I finally felt like there was something better waiting for me. It was like I could sense what my body was starting to do, like I could feel it teetering on the edge of giving up, waiting for me to give the go-ahead, wondering if it should pitch this fit or not. Of course, the likelihood is that the nurses would’ve stopped it in its tracks before it managed to get that far – but for once, I felt an inkling of control. An inkling of relief.

Like if I’d wanted to, I could’ve let myself give up. Let myself drift off into something, finally, without pain. And it was so tempting, really it was.

But it only took the turn of my head to realise that it would’ve been a mistake. I remember shifting, my limbs burning with the pain, my stomach lurching and neck shifting enough that I felt like choking on the ulcers lining my throat. I remember letting my head flop to the pillow, feverish skin and all, and I remember feeling my heart stutter inside my chest at the look on my Mum’s face.

I felt like I couldn’t breathe as I looked at her tense shoulders, the trembling fingers as she tried to coax fluids into me, her watery eyes trained on my chest and my face at all times, watching me breathe and checking for pain or for signs of going downhill. A panicked sort of helplessness that comes with sensing your child clinging to the balance, hoping and praying that nothing happens – but knowing there’s not much you can do about it if it does.

It was like waking up again.

And suddenly my heart was beating faster at the trembling lips of my Father and his gruff strokes along my bald head – his countless trips to the shop for items I found I didn’t want, after all. His promises that my life was going to be something better than this.

My kidneys worked just that little bit better with the distraction of my little sister, her scrambling for anything to take me away from the pain. Her clammy hands and her scowl when my parents made her leave my side to go home.

I found myself wanting to live more than I’d ever wanted to. People say it’s that it’s a fight against cancer, but it’s not really. Treatment for cancer is something to live through, something to survive. It’s something to lay back and just take. To endure.

But for one of the only times during my treatment, I found myself wanting to actually fight. I found myself focusing on the tiny cells wreaking havoc within me, as if I could destroy them through sheer force of will. I found myself doing whatever I could to make it even a little bit easier – longer gulps of water, more co-operative at meal and med times, stretching the withered muscles in my legs. Anything that made me feel as though I was doing something to work against what was trying to destroy me from within.

And, now, when I think of those moments, when I’m mean and uncharitable, when I think of what I chose to live for – I think that what I’ve been through, and what it put my family and friends through, and how they all live now because of it, is enough. I think enough pain has been inflicted on the world on my behalf, and I think that if I can avoid one more person feeling even a fraction of what we felt, then it’s surely my duty to at least try. Try harder, and try better, and live more aware.

I know you all probably started this hoping for some kind of insight into how I’m doing, and not some self-righteous moral spiel (which I promise I wasn’t aiming for), but that’s exactly where I’m at right now. The world is a terrible place, and plenty of people who absolutely don’t deserve it have bad things happen to them all the time, and I’m still trying to come to terms with that, but I’m learning that the answer to everything is always just to be goddamn kind.

Just try harder. If the only thing I’ve learnt from almost dying twice is that, then I’ll live the rest of my life at least knowing that I’ve tried to give back the emotional energy expended on me.

Anyway. Oh gosh, this took a turn I wasn’t expecting. My true point to this post was that I think there came a time when I realised that I’ve got to stop trying to bury what happened – stop trying to pretend like cancer never happened, like every second of it isn’t etched into who I am now – and just accept that it will always be a part of my life. That, actually, it made me a better, more loving, more grateful person.

Sure, my spine is fractured, my ovaries are dead, my head is scrambled – not even mentioning the late effects risk of further cancers, as well as issues with my lungs and heart – and I’m always worried that the next issue is just around the corner. But I’m alive.

I’m alive.

Not only that, but I’m living in America for the year as part of my degree (information for the nosy ones) – studying at a University here, returning to my most cherished state of total Befuddledness, and trying to see whether I’m truly capable of being a fully functioning and competent adult (likely not, but y’all can’t say I’m not trying).  

So thank you – to everyone who got me here. I know I’ve said it before, but something always reminds me how grateful I am, and I feel the need to tell you all again. I hope you’ve enjoyed this utterly pointless instalment of a blog that absolutely no one reads anymore, and its, once again, crazed ramblings at ungodly hours. And I really will keep you all updated at least once a year this time (wow, aim for the moon).

Over and out,

B x