I am not lying to you. After four cycles of AC chemotherapy (it takes its name from the initials of these drugs: doxorubicin (also known as Adriamycin) cyclophosphamide), that’s almost 12 weeks of treatment my 4cm grade 3 tumour has gathered it’s belongings and has left the building. IT IS NOT THERE. It no longer sits in my right breast dividing and trying to end me. My neoadjuvant therapy has most definitely worked and as I look at my ultra sound scan to see – well – nothing – that is where I sit in my body for a moment. In a place of nothing. No feelings whatsoever present themselves. It lasts moments – but in those brief seconds I see a story board in my head with the images of the pivotal moments. I am spinning through my ‘Cancer CV’. From mis-diagnosis to fear of dying, to numerous biopsies, to the pain and anxiety of the waiting results, to finding out it had not obviously spread, to chemotherapy, to side effects, to losing my hair, to living with cancer, to the way of life I now have thinking I can so do this cancer shit so positively, then to free floating into a sudden onset of intense fear that divides and peaks parascending into sheer panic that I will die despite all my hard work.
I manage to release these images, and spit out the word ‘Really?’ to my Doctor. There follows instantaneously hot tears – the ones when you try and speak over them, have a tendency to speed up their pace and fall harder. I have my boobs out – covered in gel, watching my Doctor type ‘VERY GOOD RESPONSE TO CHEMOTHERAPY’, on the ultra sound machine, listening to my husbands gasps of joy behind me. I swear I cried so fast the tears joined forces with the gel!
Op planned for the end of December, radiotherapy end of January beginning of February.
I’m back looking at my shore now. It has got even closer and it feels like a realistic journey to get there. To feel my toes in the crunchy-ness of the sand……
Positive and affirming news today so this will make my last four cycles of hell more palatable now.
I never ever want to have cancer or chemo again – so another 12 weeks – that’s only 4 hours out of my life during this time – is doable. I need to let my hopes not my hurts shape my future.
I have a fair way to go – I know that – and I know I will hit walls and face a negative deluge of inner criticism and belittlement. I’ll get angry and I will still grieve.
Often my clients lose sight of hope and live either firmly in the past or desperately into the future.
Yesterday was history, tomorrow a mystery, today is a gift, that’s why it is called the present.
If this is something you do (as do I), this might help start you off becoming more self-aware of how living for that day is all you can actually do right now. Once that moment passes, you’ll be sent another one. Stay in that. By allowing yourself to live like this – hope will be far more accessible. It’s the most important factor to overcoming life’s biggest challenges. It may only feel like a tiny spark – too impossible to reach but it will eventually pull you from those depths of despair and has the power to make you do the impossible.
Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.
Albert Enstein