A new me

There is nothing like the possibility of death to wake us up to the beauty of life.

Well, that is what you’d think and what everyone thought and what I was also determined to believe. I had survived a not so good diagnosis so I tried to grab. Grab something because I needed to prove that cancer was not going to define me.

I remember returning to work and in my head being fascinated that everything and everyone was the same and yet I had changed; my whole world was now unpredictable and frightening. I did not voice any of this to anyone because the expectation from everyone was ‘move on; it is in the past’

I had been looked after for 10 months and now I was on my own and so I did what I always did and got on with life; put my best foot forward and returned to what was to become a new normal.

My new normal back then was coping with fatigue and memory loss.

I never felt I had been or was in a fight though or that I had been in a battle. I trusted that the chemo had done its job and killed off any rogue cells.

A battle implies choice and I certainly did not choose to be diagnosed with cancer or my two beautiful daughters and I having the brca2 gene.

Mary Williams wrote in April 2016 “The word “battle” has become synonymous with the experience of cancer. With no other information than a diagnosis, headlines will declare that a public figure who’s revealed a health issue is ‘battling disease’

So along with every person I know who has had cancer I cringed last week when the media referred to Rachel Bland as ‘she lost her brave fight’ and ‘she lost her battle’

And yet… I used the word ‘fight’ in my last blog and questioned why….

I asked my older son whether he felt it was a fight to give up drugs and he said “of course.”

I asked my younger son whether he felt he was fighting the cellulitis when he was so ill and he said “no not entirely.”

Eventually I came to the conclusion that the fight I referred to was my thoughts and that was only after I read :

“Rachel Bland had triple negative breast cancer one of the toughest forms of the disease to treat”

I am a glass half full girl and try to turn a negative into a positive. I am grateful for so much in my life – my gorgeous new grandson and the other 7 grandchildren, my children, my health, and yet I read ‘triple negative breast cancer one of the toughest forms of the disease to treat” and I felt sick. I didn’t just cry, I sobbed because I had triple negative breast cancer and I realized part of my new normal is a 99% positive mindset and that remaining 1% is fighting not the cancer, but the voice in my head and fear in my heart.