Reflections and speaking from the heartHere we are again, again. It’s 7 days until my Stage 4 anniversary of 3 whole years and coming up to 7 years of Cancer dictating my life. I re-read my 24-year-selfs writings on this blog over the weekend. A tough read, albeit quite cringey reading at times, but I guess we all may experience some of this when we revisit our naiver selves and their outdated state of reality. I think that’s the great thing of putting yourself out there a little bit; someone, somewhere, at some time will come across that 24-year-old and will relate to her freshly documented experiences... And forever in that space I will forever be that young woman trying to make sense of the new expectations on life I was not prepared for. After the rough ride of 2016 and the post diagnosis world of primary breast cancer, Nick and I had to rejig everything. We had some modest savings pre-cancer, and I was through various application processes for further education in Copenhagen and Amsterdam. Nick had completed his QTS and we were well on our way to start our dream lives. But, I recall the cold realisation seeping into me post treatment, that we were not going to be able to pick up our lives and ‘carry on’. Far from it. I was now intertwined to the Welsh health system for at least the 5-year discharge benchmark for primary BC at the time.
I had to be ‘normal’ again after being poisoned, chopped up and burnt. Then alongside general life, I had to contend with getting stabbed in the ovaries every 28 days, kept in a crippling suspended menopause. I was left with no lymph nodes in my left arm, no breast, a low immune system, I was on a clinical trial for 2.5 years which involved a daily dose of Palbociclib. I felt like a fraud at work because the long hours and travel would absolutely destroy me (Messing about with wigs, weight gain and severe fatigue, a cut on my arm could lead me to a strange cities A&E in the middle of the night) but I didn’t want to lose that bit of independence I had too. But I knew I would never really be myself again. Fast forward to the secondary diagnosis of 3 years ago... Patchy updatesThings have changed since I’ve last checked in. Lets see:
|
A ' no holds' page about my life with incurable advanced Breast Cancer, in the hope it will give a realistic, detailed account to other young women going through the unfortunate illness.
Archives
September 2023
|