It’s Complicated

A few days ago was the anniversary of receiving my breast cancer diagnosis. It’s been two years since I heard those words, since my reality changed. 

With that diagnosis, the anniversaries come swiftly, the anniversary of my surgery is coming up soon, my annual mammogram is booked in and on the horizon, it’s that time of year.

It’s complicated, this time of year for me.

It jumbles lots of different thoughts and feelings up. 

It’s a mixture of re-living everything, finding it all a bit surreal, feeling relieved that I am here now, feeling guilty that many with this diagnosis aren’t, feeling sad looking back on how things were and how things are and this constant whirl of then and now. 

As you can tell, it’s complicated and tricky to articulate properly! 

Two years means I’m a little more removed from it, and it means I’ve got through those first anniversaries. 

But, and curse my good memory, I can still remember every detail. The music playing as we travelled to the appointment, the kind lady who showed me through to the breast clinic, the room we were told the news, the conversation with the nurse afterward, the emotions as I picked up the phone to tell my mum, the gut-swirling anxiety as I tried to figure out how to tell the kids. 

Breaking the news to my friends, trying to get my head around the news, the sudden whirl of phone calls and appointments, rearranging plans, calling the kids’ schools to fill them in, blood tests, nuclear injection, surgery, recuperation, new realities, more waiting for results, treatment plans, more appointments, scans, and it goes on. 

The change in everything, in me. There was life before and now life after.

It’s a funny thing, it hits you with different things at random times, when you’re not necessarily expecting it. You don’t always see it coming. 

It’s adjusting to everything yourself, and then knowing that you have to ensure that everyone around you can handle it too. My nature is to carry everything for everyone, so staying strong for everyone around me, it can be utterly exhausting. 

And of course, my priority from the moment I got my diagnosis was keeping things as normal as possible for the kids, minimising their exposure to any stress, keeping them going and having a good time with friends and school. They’re doing so well, they are great kids, absolutely smashing school and surrounded by gorgeous friends. They make me beyond proud. 

If I stop looking back and getting caught up in those emotions, I look at where I am right now.

In today’s reality I have an appointment for an injection tomorrow, every four weeks rolls around very quickly. I need to re-order my daily medication, and this treatment is giving my body a hard time. 

I have a mammogram booked in for next week, which is tied up with a whole lot of other feelings. There’s the physical of actually being back there, then the emotions, wondering what it will show, is it back?, and the long wait for results. The results have to go to my MDT for review so it can take a while, and believe me when I say I feel every one of those days. 

And then there’s my everyday life, my habits, my priorities, my health. 

I love doing what I can to make myself stronger, body and mind, and those things that get me there are ingrained happy habits for me now. 

I see things very differently than I did a couple of years ago, and in most parts, for the better. The small things really are the small things. I never have been much of a worrier, but even more so now, most things roll off me. I prioritise enjoying my days, balancing life where I can, spending time with people that I love, soaking up little things that make me smile. 

You’ll have seen the posts floating round about ‘book that trip, call that friend, wear the dress, stop saving things for best…’ you know the ones. And yes, that’s me. I don’t wait, I don’t assume I have time, though I’m not fatalistically assuming I don’t, I’m simply alive and I want to enjoy it. 

Cancer is still affecting my daily life, quite literally with appointments and medications, and emotionally, because it’s just always there. 

I guess it’s a part of who I am? I don’t want it to define me, I am so much more than this, but there’s no doubt that is has changed me. I feel saddened by it, once or twice angered by it, sometimes exhausted from it, regularly challenged by it, and occasionally, simply grateful. 

Like I say, it’s complicated.

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