Flu-Ridden Ramblings

I'm not even going to apologise for not writing in so long, as I probably sound like a broken record (though I am- sorry, that is, not literally a broken record). It's been a whirlwind since I last wrote- I have had both the best and worst of what is now my semi-normal life. I have dealt with abnormal problems like yet more health issues, and I have dealt with normal stresses- like school and exam pressures and boyfriend dramas (though I refuse to divulge that information, as it is boring and tedious).

What I will talk about however, is the adjustment between cancer-life and normal-life. I mean, it's not like it's just a switch that you get to turn off whenever you finish treatment- you can't just go back to being "normal". Life doesn't work that way with anything, least of all something like cancer.

Getting back to normal is a lot more difficult than people think it is. The common misconception people make is that everything you have been through just leaves and you forget it all- after all, why does it matter if you're not going through it anymore?

I've learnt that people are very shallow when it comes to these issues. What I mean by that is not that people aren't awesome with them, or they aren't sympathetic- because most of you are. It's just that a lot of you work on appearances- if I have colour in my cheeks, and hair on my head, it means I'm okay. When really that's not the case at all- just because I'm a year outside of treatment doesn't mean that I'm magically normal again, it just means I'm further away from the trauma than I was before.

I read a blog post recently that I absolutely ADORED, which gave a list of things a person with cancer wants you to know. I thought it was brilliant because it really gave me something to relate to- something I could laugh at, something I wanted to so badly show my friends and be like "hey this totally applies"! But I didn't. I have recently become quite cautious in what I say about my situation and where I am, and what I've been through. This isn't because I don't want to talk about it- in fact, talking about it actually helps me. Lots of people hate talking about their cancer, but I'm one of the ones where talking about it makes me feel like I'm not alone in it. Like people know a little about what I'm going through, and therefore they're one step closer to understanding it.

Anyway, the reason I'm cautious is because the words 'attention seeking' and 'selfish' have been thrown about quite a lot when it comes to me and what I talk about and say. I'm not going to point blame, or even blame anyone really. Because the truth is, I totally understand where people are coming from when they say that. Cancer has made me a little selfish, and I totally admit that- but I also want people to know that I'm selfish for a reason. Fighting for your life kind of does that to a person, it makes you look out for yourself, and it takes a while to adjust back to NOT just looking out for yourself.

But what I don't get is the 'attention-seeking' part. I mean, if truth be told, I am a little dramatic- I have known to be called a drama queen by some of my best friends and I totally don't mind that. I'm fine with being a drama queen. It's not a big deal- I'm theatrical. But when it comes to cancer, if anything I downplay what has happened. Even mentioning it casually- makes people look as uncomfortable as if you had presented a tarantula to them. It's difficult to feel comfortable around people who are uncomfortable with part of who you are. Cancer is a huge part of who I am now, the best and worst of me- the most significant thing that has ever happened to me, and the most devastating. I need people to talk about it with me like it's second nature, like it's just a characteristic of my personality. Like it's not the elephant in the room.

I guess the point of this was really just to say that I'm not adjusting back to normal life. It's hard to be around so many people who know my whole situation and still don't just accept it without feeling super uncomfortable. I get that for some people it is a reminder of family members, or previous sadness- but for me, it's my life. I think when I go to university, and meet new people who don't know my situation it will be easier. Because then at least they won't be not accepting part of me, they'll just not know about it.

Sometimes I just feel a little hopeless- like life after cancer sucks just as much as it did when I had it. But then I think; at least I'm alive. Finding things to be grateful for every day helps me get through- and it's my new year's resolution to find at least five a day. So, I thought I would share today's with you all.

1.        I'm totally grateful for Kate Bush and her amazing voice and way with words

2.        I'm super grateful for my Mother, who brought me a range of food lovelies so that I wasn't so down about being ill this week and sat through a terrible musical with me just because she loves me

3.        I'm grateful for Lucy and her wit and hilarity and the way she swoops in every day after school to make me feel better and to let me know how she is, and how her day went

4.        I'm so grateful to my Dad, who is in India at the moment, but who made this week far more bearable by making silly jokes and just being there to cheer me up in my state of illness

5.        I am massively grateful to my friends Becky and Matt N, who have both shown how much they love me (by telling me, or by buying me a coke and having THE best catch up- or by planning a girls night) and have cheered me up

6.        And finally I am grateful for my gorgeous boyfriend, who has told me he misses me every day I've been ill and has bought me flowers and chocolate to cheer me up and make me feel loved.

All of these things (and I managed six, not just five) make me think that really, life isn't so bad after all. I've got people who care about me, and I'm not sick anymore (not with cancer, anyway) and I laugh at least once every day.

Find something you're grateful for- because life is good, readers.

Love to all.

Lil xoxo

"We need never be hopeless because we can never be irreparably broken." J. Green

I think there are points in life where everything just seems a little meaningless. It's hard to continue, and everything you do seems to have no real end point, no real reward- like you're working really hard towards absolutely nothing.
I've gotten to that point now, and while aimlessly trawling through the internet a while back I stumbled across a saying; "Everything will be ok in the end. And if it's not ok- it's not the end."
It struck me that I had been looking for this saying my whole life. There are variations of it, "things will get better" being one of them, but only this set of words really struck me as the most meaningful thing I have read (especially when trawling through the internet).
I thought, and thought, about this one little phrase and what it could possibly mean. And I realised life is one great marathon- everyone is just trying to get to the end. No matter whether you jog it, walk it, run it, wheel it- everyone is just aiming for that finish line. You start off confident, able, and slowly that confidence is knocked and you get more and more tired and weary until you feel you can't go any further. And at some point or other you wonder why the hell you are even running the damn race in the first place- especially since no one else around you seems to be struggling with the run.
I feel like this is the make or break of that persons marathon/life- we can choose to discontinue and leave the race, or we can continue and accept that water bottle from that stranger (or that helping hand from God, a friend, or family in real life) and keep on going even though we have blisters and we're tired.
I think of it as this- there's blister plasters to cool the blisters on your feet, there's power bars to keep you energised, but there isn't another marathon once you've left it.
And even though sometimes it has sucked, and it's worn you out and all you want to do is sleep for a thousand years at the end- you're happy you've made it, sad it's all over and relieved you can rest now.
I imagine that's what it's like at the end of life. And I pray that I make it to the end because even though I'm tired, and I'm battered and everything seems a little bit pointless- it's not the end yet. And you know what?
Everything's going to be ok in the end.

This post is dedicated to a friend of mine whose Dad is in the hospital, and struggling a bit at the moment. To him and his family, everything must seem like that terrible point in the race. So this post, my first post dedication, is for them.

Love to all of you runners in this never ending race,

B x

Contemplation squared

I apologise for not having written for a few weeks. I was waiting for some lightning bolt of inspiration to strike me or something, I suppose. It hasn't.
But as I was lying on my bedroom floor not five minutes ago (as I often do to contemplate the day and my actions), I realised it's because in all honesty I'm really not that inspirational.
I know a lot of people who read this will probably jump to argue that statement, and I know my family will- but to be perfectly honest what have I done, besides cancer, to make me in any way inspirational?
1 in 3 of us, in our lives, will get cancer. If you count how many people that is in the world, then that is a lot of people who are inspirational, not to mention the fact that probably another 1 of those 3 probably have a different kind of disability that makes them equally inspirational.
If you really think hard, its a small minority of people that DON'T have something horrible/monumental happen to them throughout their lifetime. So really that makes everyone inspirational. And if everyone's inspirational, then is it really that special anymore?

I don't know, I'm not saying that those who have such things happen to them aren't inspirational because I have met some truly inspirational people- including Stephen Sutton (who I am praying will get better because he is THE most fantastic addition to this planet) so inspirational people do exist but I don't think its a case of necessarily everyone who has had something bad happen is automatically inspirational for getting through it.
I mean, personally I see nothing inspirational about me. If you look at it, I'm just an almost seventeen year old girl, who spends too much time inside, is probably a little too selfish and attention-loving for her own good, drinks a little too much red wine for her age and finds that she can only really concentrate to 70's punk rock.

Really, I'm just a normal teenager (albeit with a slightly less than normal sense of style). So my point is, next time I won't wait until I feel that inspirational lightning strike that is sure to never come but I wait months for, anyway. I'll just write.

So, to all you perfectly average people, thank you for being average. And to you inspirationals- thank you.

Contemplating lying back on the floor for further contemplation,

B x

"Those awful things are survivable, because we are as indestructible as we believe ourselves to be."- J.Green

I think sometimes when we are suddenly submersed into our own personal hell it's easy to forget that there are shining moments in life. It's easy to feel like there's no way that anything will ever be remotely the same again. And to be honest, maybe it won't. But that doesn't mean it won't ever be good again. 
After the first time of having cancer, I remember just feeling annoyed that it had all happened to me and I found myself actually wanting to just forget it. I wanted to move on and get life back to how it was supposed to be and carry on, really. I used to feel sad that I didn't feel the new lease of life that so many people who had gone through cancer had described feeling when they survived.
Nevertheless, I started to feel comfortable again- comfortable and hopeful in my life and that I would have a blissfully average future. 
Then came the second diagnosis. I remember waiting those three months to be re-scanned and confirm, and going over and over in my head what was happening and why it was happening. 
That comfortable, sure feeling vanished and I was uncertain again- it's difficult to describe how my head was at those times. 
You can't explain to people the fear, I suppose. The fear of dying, of the pain, the sickness, having to go through being different all over again. Having to have my life shattered in front of my eyes again, and then having to pick them all up again when I was fixed. 

The fear of picking up the pieces takes over a little, even over the fear of dying. I mean, as a human I have a strange sense of invincibility- even when I was afraid of dying, I wasn't really. Because in my head, it just couldn't happen. I am to die at 100, and in my sleep, and that's how I've always pictured it- not at sixteen and probably drowning in my own lungs. Luckily that's not happening, but for a split second it was a possibility.

Today I went to see the Amazing Spider-Man 2 film that came out last week. I'm not going to give anything away (that would be mean) but at one point Emma Stone's character said; "We have to be greater than what we suffer". 

Though I'm sure some people would think me conceited or arrogant for saying this out loud- I have been through a lot. Over the course of my life time, I have known suffering. Now, not suffering like I am starving to death in a third world country, or having my family shot in front of me, or having everyone I love die of disease around me- but in my own circle, in my own head, I have. 

It's all relative suffering, I suppose. It all depends on the amount that persons mind can cope with, and what that person has to live with or go through every day. But in my mind, I know that emotionally and physically I feel like I have suffered (a little, anyway). I also know that I am trying my very hardest to be greater than it. I'm not sure I know how to be greater than it at the moment, I think everyone has to be great in their own ways and I think I finally understand how to be greater than my cancer. 

I said earlier that I was sad that after the first time I didn't feel a new lease of life immediately. Maybe I just needed another round to make me see, I thought, second time round. After stem cell, it came gradually. When the throwing up stopped, I felt grateful. When the tube was taken out, I felt grateful. Gradually as everything got better and better and I realised what it was to feel well (ish) again, the appreciation started to come. The more I thought about it, the more I started to love the fact that I was alive. I realised it's not an automatic thing, the lease of life. It doesn't just turn on like a light as soon as you're out of chemo or radio, it takes time. It takes the courage to reflect on everything you've been through and know that being alive is definitely worth it all.

It did take time, I still don't trust my body. In fact, I'm very angry at my body. Angry it betrayed me not once, but twice. Angry that it put me through everything it did, and angry that it never told me. My very favourite author once said, though, in one of my favourite books; "the only way out of the labyrinth of suffering is to forgive". So I'm trying to forgive. Forgiving and living, is what I am doing.

And while doing so, I finally understood that the only way to be greater than what I have suffered is to live. Not just for me, but for everything I fought for over the past two years, for the people who helped me through it all. Maybe even just for the sake of life itself. 

And it's just unfortunate it took two rounds of cancer to show me that. 

Contemplating life and love and other 'L' words, 

B x

Bladder Arrogance

So, I've been spending quite a lot of time with a friend of mine that's a boy. Shopping, cinema- mainly because he's the only one of my friends who doesn't have lots and lots of heavy revision to do for exams in May/June (I don't, either, obviously).  I've noticed a thing, though, when we're paying- or getting super sized cokes at the cinema counter that will inevitably lead to needing to pee halfway through the movie but arrogance in the capability of my (overflowingly full) bladder being able to hold on for the full two and a half hours always finds me there buying one anyway.

So, this obviously intriguing 'thing', is the fact that a girl (or woman, am I a woman yet? Well, I guess I am. Too much information.) cannot be out with a close guy friend alone without the majority of people assuming that you're in a relationship with that person. Either that or they assume that the guy completely is in love with the girl and he is in 'the friendzone' (I believe that this is a zone certain men who don't get what they want from a woman have created in order to make the woman pity them or feel bad about not actually wanting to be with that person- either that or something that women have created to let men know that they only want to be friends and to give them hope but in a super strange, twisted way... I'm not really sure which, or where it came from but the concept strikes me as odd, since when did guys being friends with girls have to have an actual label?). 

Example: In New Look the other day, I was with a good friend and saw a pair of high heeled platforms that were on sale and decided I just had to buy them. He, of course, tried to persuade me against it as I'm pretty much broke anyway and having another pair of shoes would probably make my room fall through the floor (they're so high I can't really walk in them anyway but don't tell him that- I don't want ANOTHER 'I told you so' situation on my hands). 

Anyway, as I was paying the woman was awkwardly making conversation and Matt (my friend) decided to make a light hearted joke about how they were obviously his purchase, which I laughed at- the woman, as we were about to leave, made a comment about Matt being a gentlemen and was he going to carry my bags for me that a) obviously implied that she thought we were a couple and b) meant that he felt a little obliged to then carry my bags for me.

All the way back to my house we scrutinised her reaction and why she thought that we would be a couple and the only logical explanation I could come up with was the fact that Matt was willing to come into New Look in the first place. 

I'm not really sure what the point of this post is... Probably just me being frustrated at the fact people label very easily. If you can take a deeper meaning out of it, then please do, and let me know so that I can explain to everyone I wasn't just letting everyone know my cinema and bladder habits and that I was really trying to get a point across. 

Happy Easter to you all. 

Contemplating whether she has become a more boring blogger.

B x

Almighty Humanity

I don't know how I feel about God. I do believe, and I can't help that- I don't think your belief is something you can control, you can't force yourself to believe in something you don't. Things that happen can change your belief, but I don't think you can just will yourself to believe or not believe in something.

When I was first diagnosed, I was so angry. Angry at people for not understanding, angry at the doctors and nurses for pouring fire into my veins, angry at my friends for carrying on with normal life. But most of all, I was angry with God. Angry because he had forsaken me, he had given me this awful thing to cope with and just left me when I needed him. I wouldn't go to church, I wouldn't pray, and I would swear hands down that I was an atheist. But I don't think I was, I mean- even if I was angry at him, then it still meant I believed.
As the chemo got worse and worse and the throwing up came and the peripheral neuropathy and the pain, I got desperate. I used to stay awake in the early hours of the morning, making bargains with God. Saying I would do anything if he just made it a bit better. If he helped me get even a little better, I would give up chocolate, or I would go to church or pray every day. I would have done anything at that point.
When it didn't get better, then I got angry all over again and wouldn't talk to God at all until I broke and started bargaining again. It was an endless cycle of hating God and pleading with Him.
When I got better, and started to get my energy back and lost weight and started to feel more like myself- I turned back to God. I thanked him for me getting through it, thanked him for making me better.
People probably think I'm crazy when I say this, but I could feel it when it came back. I could feel it in my bones that something was wrong. When I was up late at night, my stomach would be at my ankles with the fear- knowing I would have to go through it all again, knowing that I could feel it growing back inside of me.
I even called my Mum one day during school, when I had gotten a particularly bad chest pain, and asked her to pick me up. The first thing I said to her as we got in the car was "I think it's back."- I knew, I just could.
I prayed and prayed and prayed in the three months until my scan after it had grown a little. I stayed up late, and cried, and listened to music that made my heart feel like it was being ripped in two- I just wanted to feel the pain. Feel the pain before, so that when it came to the diagnosis that I knew was coming, I would feel nothing. It doesn't work like that, apparently. I didn't cry, when it eventually came, and I shaved my head after my operation. I didn't tell anyone but Lucy, who did it for me. I was shaking the whole time, watching the hair fall from my head and knowing I had to go through hell again- wondering why God had done this to me again. Wondering what I had to do just to stay alive, and why I of all people had to fight for my place on this earth all over again.
I kept my faith, though, I convinced myself that it wasn't God's fault. That it was my genetics and that these things happen and He can't control them. But as soon as I got on to the ward, and saw every teenager there so sick, and some dying, I couldn't. My faith toppled the first night after my operation, as I heard someone screaming in pain down the corridor. I curled up after my parents left, and I cried again, but not because I was hooked up to three different drips, or had three new scars along my back, or because I knew I wouldn't be able to have a proper shower again in another nine months- but because the belief that it wasn't God's fault just toppled again. It just went, and I felt like I had nothing to believe in. He had made me better the first time, right? So if I didn't believe in him now, I would never get better, right?

Wrong. So, so wrong. Because God didn't make me better. Doctors did. God didn't help me through those difficult, pain filled nights. My Mother did. God didn't stroke my head when I was sad because he knew it soothed me. My Father did. And God did not come home and tell me funny stories or take the piss because he knew it made me feel lighter. My sister did.
And you know what? God didn't give me the strength to get through everything I had to go through- I did. I FOUND the strength inside me. Humans are incredible, and I found how Incredible I could be when I was diagnosed the second time. I realised that I believe in Him, I do. I love God and just because I don't church doesn't mean I love him any less. But I believe in myself and the power of people. I believe people can find strength from anywhere- no matter what their belief, or lack of belief, or colour or age or gender.

So when people ask me what my belief is- I say people. My belief is in humans. I am a Christian, too, but above anything else I will always believe in the good of humanity.

Anyway. I hope you are all well, and I believe in you all.

Befuddled Believer x

The Boredom Bug and its Baking Habits

Hallo, all. 

Well, I actually have nothing better to do so I am indeed writing a blog again. YAY! Well, I hope it's a yay... A few of you probably groaned- if you did, boo you. 
I've got the Boredom Bug. It's what I call it when you get that 'I'm-so-bored-of-life-can-we-skip-to-the-good-bit' feeling. It's the kind of boredom where you lie awake at night too BORED to go to sleep, and lay in bed in the mornings too BORED to get up and face the very BORING day you are most likely going to have. It makes you cranky, miserable, restless and at the moment its causing my insomnia to creep back. 
I always wake up with the intention of doing something proactive- but seeing as my day isn't filled and I don't HAVE to be anywhere or do anything, the proactive thing slips and I slowly just make my way from lying in my bed to lying several other places around the house. At least I move around the house, I guess.
Today, though, I couldn't take it anymore. So I forced my mother to bake with me, though by the end she wasn't really interested in baking the endless biscuits or cooking my vegetarian meal (that's right, I'm a vegetarian now). She at least baked the shortbread with me, though, and it was delicious and definitely worth the ridiculous amount of effort I put into squeezing it into a pan to cook. Then I baked apricot and dark chocolate chip cookies, which turned out fabulously as well. Finally, I cooked a 'three bean, four veg' chilli that I completely made up but which actually tasted pretty nice in the end. Spicy, but nice. 
See? Boring. In fact, reading this probably bored all of you- it bored me writing it, and I'm actually stimulating my brain to do so. 
I don't really know what to do about it anymore, I think I have to just wait until it passes and fatten myself and my family up with baked goods until it does. 
I've started a '101 things to do when you survive' list, and I plan to start that now (with the easiest to complete first). I'll post the first few on soon, if I haven't already. Goodness, I'm boring. 
Well, anyway. I should return to staring at my laptop screen in a very bored manner while stuffing my face with delicious apricot biscuits and shortbread.

Night, all, and hope you're all doing fabulously.

B x