...And we are here to stayIt is with a heavy heart that I dust off the keyboard and resume my writing post from my last entry, just nearly 3 years ago. It is currently 3.42am, and I am sitting somewhere between an acute, mental, steroid induced rumination and a docile morphine mixed, pregabalin physical state. The house is sedate and still, with nothing but the slight breeze disturbing the trees outside and the occasional grunt of the dog (Alaska) stretched out on his bed. I am currently looking across to the Daffodils coming into bloom on my coffee table, the edges of the yellow petals are romanticised by the orange hue of the salt lamp... It strikes me how quick spring has arrived this year – at the same time, I recognise a dull pang in my gut as I quietly acknowledge my feelings. I feel I have lost so much time already... There are worst places to spend a morning :) 33 days ago, I was presented with some news which provoked the most turbulent paradigm deviation. At somewhere around the 1am mark, I was calmly informed they had detected cancer on my spine, further scans ensued and resulted in the painful stagnated leak of information over the next coming 12 days. We have been told there is about a 95% chance this cancer is related to the previous diagnosis, however until the biopsy results, they are treating me on the possibility of such. Over those 12 days, we started to learn my condition was incurable and inoperable, due to the mass of the cancerous clustered lesions dotted up and down my spine, right femur bone and the bulk of activity sitting rigidly in my lumbar spine. On day 10, we were candidly informed I also had tumours sat at the base of my skull, just above my neck and one behind my left eye. In the space of those 12 days my prognosis changed with each doctor's opinion and my life expectancy fluctuated from months to years, to a matter of weeks to months. Eventually, I met my new cancer nurse (The wonderful Ann) and she has filled us with the hope that I will make at least two years (after Nicks leading questions – she was a true professional). Although I am aware you cannot fixate on outcomes like this, a ballpark figure doesn’t hurt! And gives me a little something to focus on. Surprisingly, I am spending most of my thought process largely in the state of acceptance but am quietly anticipating the arrival of a brutal existential slap. Comparatively, I have been advised to ‘let it out’ by many well-wishers, only to find my emotions are largely balanced at this time. When I cry, my tears tend to feel like they range from a deep sadness, like an almost ‘gutted’ feeling, all the way up to tears of happiness... It makes me hopeful on a subconscious level, that I might be at peace with the decisions and relationships I have made in my life. Which is the biggest comfort when you feel your are on borrowed time. Given the challenges I have needed to confront in my life so far, paired with the fresh ultimate awareness of my own mortality. I am equally reluctant, yet confident in my true spirit to blissfully declare... currently... I do not really feel afraid of dying, I’m just having too much fun not to! I am picking up this blog once again to share my journey as honestly as I can. Through sharing my thoughts, discoveries and stories. I hope (rather boldly) from the bottom of my heart, that if just one person felt truly grateful, for their existence, even for a moment after reading something I have put into the world, then sharing the most personal aspect of my life here, will be worth it. Before you go, I wish to invite you to take some time, to speculate the very concept of luck, beyond its definition. Hopefully you are ‘lucky’ enough to be able to carry on with the life you have made for yourself today... Just hold the thought, contemplate the choices you make in the awareness you may be ‘privileged’ with ‘luck’... please think about those choices. |
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
|