Three years on from cancer - a life update

 

“Recovery isn’t a gentle self-care spree that restores you to a pre-illness state. Though the word may suggest otherwise, recovery is not about salvaging the old at all. It’s about accepting that you must forsake a familiar self forever, in favor of one that is being newly born. It is an act of brute, terrifying discovery.”

- Suleika Jaouad 

I recently read over my New Normal blog from two years ago and thought it was time for an update. We are heading towards the end of the year and hitting some "cancerversaries" - 3 years since my mastectomy and reconstruction, and nearly 4 years since the diagnosis. Having lost my sister-in-law to metastatic breast cancer earlier this year I don't like to openly celebrate my survivorship - I'm glad to be alive and healthy of course, but making too much of a song and dance about it feels insensitive. 

I've recently realised that the cost of my survivorship is a PTSD-like response to any kind of injury or illness - is this the cancer returning? And it's not a vague wondering or gentle memory, it's a full-noise straight-back-in-the-trauma situation. Sore back? metastatic cancer in my bones. Headache? metastatic cancer in my brain. It's a visceral fear that knocks out my ability to think rationally for a good amount of time, although I am noticing the duration is reducing, if not the intensity. 

And hearing of any diagnosis or death of anyone in my wider circle is similarly difficult to deal with rationally. I really hate the way I now respond to this type of news - I initially feel compassion and care for that person but within a few short minutes the fear rips through me and I'm back in that state of wondering when this dreadful disease will claim ME. It feels disrespectful to the other person and their loved ones, but there's not a lot I can do about it. Hopefully one day I'll be able to hear such things and not react that way, but for now that's the price I pay for being alive. 

But apart from that life is pretty good and I'm able to enjoy each day on it's own merits. I'm still taking Tamoxifen and seem to tolerate it well. I get regular hot flushes but I'm of an age where that would be happening by now anyway. And there are other things like brain fog and weight gain that I'm just used to now, it's all become part of this new version of me. I've had the finishing touches made to my post-mastectomy body and it feels like mine again, which is really good. Not how it was, but whose body doesn't become changed by their experiences, if we are lucky enough to live that long?

I have kept most of the positives from cancer - I'm still loving making guided meditations, I'm prioritising enjoyment and adventure over career progression, I feel so glad to be here and to have so many good things in my life. I completed two years of archaeology study and am considering my options for further study in the years to come.

I think I'm kinder to myself these days. I don't have the energy or drive that I used to but that's ok. Resting is a perfectly acceptable way to spend a Sunday morning. My brain isn't as quick, and I think it took literally years to recover from chemo, but if it's kept me alive then that's ok. I'm a better person, more understanding of the wide range of trauma, sadness and grief that most of us experience at various points in our lives. I'm so much more accepting and understanding of myself - some of this will have come with age of course, but it works in my favour to credit cancer with this good stuff, so that's what I do. 

I'm returning to the world more now, after a number of years in my cottage-cocoon. I'm more interested in experiencing live music, and having adventures again, and I'm happy with small pleasures now. I look back with pity on my younger self who would become almost paralysed with worry about what other people thought of me, my clothes, my hair, my taste in music. That has morphed into a generalised social anxiety around large groups of people but I've stopped caring almost entirely about what others might think of the things I love. I've realised we are all mostly wrapped up in ourselves and who on earth is sitting around thinking bad thoughts about my furniture choices? Ridiculous, but there it is. 

I'm motivated to stay fit and healthy but I've developed a slight mistrust in my body. I appreciate it and love it and take care of it but sometimes in the dead of night I wonder if it's turning on me again. I am slowly regaining my joy. I think I was depressed for a while, but that's ok as cancer is fucking depressing. The smell of hand santiser made me queasy and any medical facility put me on edge, but I'm ok with that stuff again now. I only have to get my boobs out for strangers twice a year now, not on a weekly basis! I can walk past the mural in the Cancer Society car park and not burst into tears. But I kind of miss the kindness of strangers at places like the Cancer Society and the infusion room. 

My hair has grown back really lovely and my tattooed eyebrows look the part. The only remaining marker to the casual observer is my port scar, which has not faded to a pale white line like my other scars - it remains pink and angry and remembers how much I hated what lay beneath. I notice people notice it but nobody ever mentions it. I'm not sure if I want them to or not. 

I miss my sister-in-law, she was my guide to what to expect of treatment and I still don't actually believe she's gone. It's like a strange practical joke she's playing on us all. I miss having someone I can say "ooo like a saline flush - yuk!" to and know she knows what I mean. The speed she was taken from us is shocking. When I was injured and alone this winter I assumed the cancer had come to collect me too, and I planned my funeral and thought about where I wanted to die. There was a strange relief in knowing I didn't have to wonder 'what if' anymore and could just get on and make a death planning spreadsheet. But it was a common ole slipped disc, not a malevolent malignancy and so now I'm back to thinking about how I want to live. It's nicer, but also I'm not afraid to face death head-on. Or at least I don't think I am - I imagine all bets are off when it's you sitting across from the doctor with the concerned and pitying look on their face. 

But I try not to imagine too much, as my role now - my duty - is to live well, to do the things that make me happy, to do the things that aren't possible for those who have left us. To honour my younger self, my older self, everyone who supported us through those dark days - to do meaningless things in a meaningful way and try not to lose sight of the fact that everything can change in an instant. 

So I think this new me is someone I really like. I feel forged in flame in a way I wasn't before. I miss the casual confidence in my body and youth and health and ability to earn a living, but that feels like maturity more than anything else, I suppose. Things could have been a lot worse, and they may still turn to custard, but while I can I want to live as joyfully and adventurously as possible. Not in a hundred-miles-an-hour way but in a comforable and sustainable way - adventure interspersed with cups of tea and cuddles with the cat. I don't think it's a particularly remakable life in the grand scheme of things, but it's the one I have and I love the stuffing out of it.