The 'Walking Dead'I am sure a fair few of us feel this sorry looking world is looking a tad apocalyptic in 2020, and although I cannot speak for my secondary sisters, I have begun to try and own my new role as ‘the walking dead’. Stuck in a strange limbo, I am unable to make and carry out the plans a 28-year-old should be preoccupied with. Yet I am also not at the point of dying just yet, so need to keep existing. My ambitions and career prospects have been reluctantly abolished, while I am too sick to carry out my job or make any commitments to still being here in 5 years time. I could go on, but you get the idea. I still feel ‘gutted’ that my time has been so short, but also the anvil still hasn’t smacked me on the head just yet. Oddly, I am still feeling largely accepting and at peace with my approaching end. Death is the most taboo topic to speak about, especially at my age... but what if I told you it has become the simplest factor to deal with? I recall writing an early entry on here in the spring, commenting on the soft hue of the light behind the already bloomed daffodils, and the chill which descended down my spine as I realised that I had lost time already. Well now the deciduous trees are already turning into a chorus of soft warm shades as time continues to slowly tick by. I am conscious I have eaten into just under a third of my ‘statistically averaged’ time for someone with my condition, and I feel a small ‘pang’ in my gut. Out of the three ‘big guns’ of secondaries, death is the most acquainted and the most natural. We all must face it, regardless. The other two factors however, are what keep me awake at night... Along with death, you have the uglier sisters of pain and disability to contend with. To set the scene, just this time last year I spent my mornings up the gallops, afternoons clocking up mileage on the bike or carrying out DIY, topped with monthly visits to different cities to party hard! And my days in work would consist of walking around forestry, scaling zipwires and jumping off platforms. Now, I cannot stand still without being in pain or lie on my back, and I struggle to get up from the floor. The good news is, I have managed to start walking further than the kitchen and embarked on tiny rides on the bike again, but this is such a far cry to what I want to be doing and I am feeling greatly bitter at the fact I have to be thankful I can just about do these things. It is highly unlikely I will ever do a number of the things I love again, as the fucking cancer has eaten into my weight bearing bones. I acknowledge that you will get periods which will be better than others (maybe between aggressive treatments), but those ‘better’ periods are likely to decrease in quality over time, as you ultimately get weaker. I am not afraid of death... but if the reality of living is becoming like this, then I am terrified of dying. I look onwards to the increase of noticeable deaths, just in my vicinity of courageous and absolutely wonderful young women that deserved to live, and I reluctantly read the updates of my secondary sisters. I am awaiting the time until I run out of treatment options and when I need to have various tubes installed into my flesh to keep me breathing. Why does it have to be like this? We consider it cruel to keep a dog alive in a state of advanced cancer, why do WE not have the choice? It could be different:
But no... my secondary sisters and I are forced to wait for our degrading deaths when they were/are preventable. We are unvalued and we don’t matter. I challenge you to change my mind. At the height of COVID we saw letters being issued near me from a doctor's surgery. The message was clear- if you get sick, tough luck, stay away and do not ask for help (source 2020)... and now I watch as pubs and restaurants are bursting out the sides, flights are operating, but physiotherapy for cancer patients, company on our 7 hour long treatments and our much-needed secondary meetups cannot happen... After shielding for 21 weeks... are you actually fucking kidding me? The ‘system’ has failed us in the greatest way. And so, it is with a very heavy heart that death must be accepted by us ‘rare’ young secondaries. Sure enough we are living for the moment, and yeah, we are still enjoying parts of our lives but we must learn to suppress and deal with our anxieties and fears of meeting our maker prematurely to be able to do so. We must praise thanks for being alive through gritted teeth as our body eats away at itself and be at peace with the fact we will never be the person we once were. The bottom line is secondary cancer is so grotesque people do not want to deal with it. It is so much nicer to indulge the lucky buggers that get to ring the end of treatment bell, to buy a cake and think 17p worth of it is going to ‘help’ cancer research. It is ridiculous this is even charity funded. My heart breaks when I think without Macmillan, BCN, Ty Olwen hospice, Marie Curie and Maggies (to name a few), the support for living with this beast just wouldn't be there. Is that not quite amazing to think, when you remember one in two people get cancer in the UK? It comes full circle, we just don’t want to deal with death. Despite the cynical tone of this, please do not worry about me. I am actually in a good place and doing quite well, but I just think it is very important people are aware of what is happening. Like every issue, only the majority have the power to change things, but it is only when we find ourselves in the minority do we want to change things, and by then, it is too late, - you fall into the group of the unheard. |
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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