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