Here it comes – the ‘Why me?’ feeling.
Great. Happy Saturday Heidi.
I’ve had a sickly feeling throughout the night. Woke very early to much of the same. Ginger tea and toast, meds then back to sleep. It takes a few hours to get up. I’m crying now. Chubby tears make their way down my cheeks and skim my puffy, metallic tasting lips. Shit. I’ve got breast cancer and I’ve had chemotherapy. The enormity hits me so bloody hard. I want to rip my skin off and scream. I can’t get off this ride. The roller coaster doesn’t stop and right now I’m once again questioning the safety belts. I’m scared. I hate this. It’s Saturday. I do stuff on a Saturday. And now I can’t. I can’t even stand up without the whirring noise of cancer infecting me – it’s a bastard. I’m angry and I want out.
Flowers and gifts continue to arrive and this really perks me up. The word ‘strong’ seems to be a theme on the cards and messages. It’s funny how others perceive you isn’t it? ‘If anyone can beat cancer you can’. ‘The cancer dare not have spread’ says another.
Inside I have a strength – I recognized it was this that has brought me this far in my life. But I always felt I came across as loud, aloof (lack of confidence), like I’m winging it all the time. I’m kind, thoughtful and loyal – but those attributes are external. My mental attributes haven’t always found their way or had their voices heard. But I’m working on me – I want to look into the mirror and assess what is there. Often it is so steamed up to see clearly. But I do try.
In my first biopsy 95% of my cells were full of cancer……hence the grade 3 prediction…..
I’d love 95% of my personality to be as strong and as dominant as this. That may not be the case for me today. Today I am low and I am struggling to grasp any sense of objectivity in my space.
I learnt years ago you cannot take any responsibility for the way others see you, or what opinions they may have of you – good or bad. I can only own how I feel and how I respond to others opinions of me. I can choose to make them matter or not. Not easy – but if you can hone this skills – trust me – life will be a little easier. So I try hard to shift my thinking – I try very hard to be kind to myself and my own opinions of how I am coping and what I am faced with. I am trying very hard not to feel like a physical and mental failure.
16:20 …. I go for a walk….
A good plan. Feeling better for it. I ignored the cancer chatter trying to accompany me. Those mean thoughts that crawl in. They themselves divide like cancer. ‘Why haven’t you got cancer and not me?’ I say them out loud to my husband. He neutralizes them – ‘It’s normal – today this is where your head is at – you’ve been brilliant and managed better than I thought you would’. In an instant they evaporate.
I don’t wish you or anyone else had cancer.
I just wish I
didn’t.