What Chemo does to your IDENTITYSo that was Chemotherapy... Time to take a breather. 'They' tell you when you are diagnosed with the big C, that you have the fight of your life ahead of you, but what 'they' don't tell you, is what 'they' mean by that. Chemotherapy is no joke. Your time on the drug can be a brutal, soul crushing and completely degrading experience, as it systematically robs more of your identity with each cycle, holding no prejudice. The truth lies in the longevity of the treatment; to say you learn a lot about yourself, in my opinion, is an outright understatement and it can take a long time to appreciate this little fact, as you don't consciously feel yourself change overtime. During the process of each cycle, you find yourself mentally ticking off the hours, to and from the next infusion, fully knowing that the next cycle has yet another thing to take from you, that you previously thought you 'couldn't live without'. You then have to constantly re-adapt to life with the new challenge, albeit mental or physical. Please let me elaborate on that... So... what makes 'a person'? The notion of what is 'a person' is often confused and misdirected as a question relating to the construction of identity. At the shallow end of the spectrum the idea of identity construction, however, must be acknowledged and maybe even considered to be the first layer, the shell of a person. It is only when we move beyond these constructs can we then begin to understand what it is to be 'a person'. A living, breathing, being. Identity can be fathomed through the usual physical attributes, as well as the persons social, political, economic and religious withstanding or beliefs. Grieving for the loss of each element of your persona: the usual capitalist fodder, is not nearly as challenging as the new identity you have been given. The identity chemotherapy gives you. The predictable loss of my physical qualities involved my character defining red hair, bouncy fringe and gaining well over a stone from my former body weight, the knock on effect being a hairless body in loose-fitted clothing, replacing my once confident, brisk walk with a pained, bloated, waddle. Congratulations, you now look like a complete cancer 'victim', and you must embrace your new power that makes people shift away from you uncomfortably and avert their gaze. You know, there is a special 'look' people give you, it is kind of a tight lipped, closed mouth smile, with their eyebrows slightly raised, It is an incredibly patronising look. Anyway, there is certainly 'something' in being an 'ill person', every time someone looks at you, you are unconsciously reminding them of their own mortality, your pathetic, bald, vessel becomes death personified... Scratch that. Cancer personified. and it does not take long for you to realise just how your new look can be offensive to people, which is , a shame. Lets face it, it is probably the last thing Lesley in Tesco needs to be dealing with today, when she is just nipping in for her bottle of white Zinfandel and ready meal. Unfortunately, you get reminded of your own mortality every time you catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror, a helpless spectator witnessing the slow destruction of everything you have worked so hard to achieve and maintain. For your reference: Two identities one person.
The thing is, you are still the same person you were before. If not, a better, braver person. It can be quite liberating when you are thrown out of the segments from your previous character, you may find that your social, political, economic and religious with-standings do not matter and realise they never really did matter either. They never defined you. You only believed they did! The completion of chemotherapy can only be described as what I imagine it would be like being the only surviver of an epic nuclear apocalypse: You emerge from the shadows feeling the warm hopeful rays of the sun on your skin, battered and bruised, you have experienced some seriously ugly matter and have faced death square on. There is still some work to do, but you are content within the stillness and just unbelievably thankful to be still here. You are no longer afraid. From this moment on, my body will no longer be one that embodies the look of death, but that of disaster survivor, sure enough my hair will steadily grow back like spring grass through the winter snow, the pain will fade into distant scars on the landscape of my body and I will have my life back. I am so fucking excited! |
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.
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September 2023
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