So, to radiotherapy I go. I had a fair few weeks with no treatment. Plenty of aches, pains, fatigue and the like but my body was beginning to take the big strides it needed to, to get away from cancer treatment. I was eating better, starting to run again, and loosing small amounts of the chemo chub that has moved in and won’t budge. I could feel the positive tones of life and the future was looking accessible. I worked well with the fear that spiked up and started to plan my final exit out of cancer planet. It was feeling good.
Then that familiar letter arrived. The one from the hospital. Guts drop. Hate these. These and ‘Unknown number’ calls on my mobile send my brain off into a frenzy. They remind me I have had cancer, and people are out to talk to me about it. I expect it’s about radiotherapy as my consultant mentioned the end of March, so my gut stabilises and I open it. Not like any other letters this one. Oh no. It has ‘West Wales Cancer Centre’ written in bold across the top of it. Guts back to the floor.
Cancer centre? Really? Pause. Oh yes – I had cancer and I am still having treatment.
You might think this is a weird process of thinking going on here. Like how can I ever forget I had cancer? Of course you can’t. But I was starting to live without it being the main focus of my world and now – here is the reminder it still has to be. I still have to have this treatment and quite frankly, right now…..I don’t want to. I want to never read the words ‘Cancer Centre’ EVER again. F*** off.
I have an appointment for the assessment for radiotherapy. I have to go to be measured up and have some small black ink dot tattoos marked on me. The radiographers make pin point sized tattoo marks on your skin. They use these marks to line you up into the same position every day. The tattoos make sure they treat exactly the same area for all of your treatments. I am having a CT scan too. The scan shows the cancer and the area around it, and helps them plan the radiotherapy just for you. OK. I can do that. I chat to friends who have had the procsudre and this sounds easy. Nothing like chemo and I have always felt they saved the best till last!
Except they want to see me by the end of the week with the view to starting 11/02. Now that got me. I had the end of March in my head. Shit. I am going for this sooner than I thought. There comes the anger in me again. It starts in my chest then leaks into my stomach, neck, arms, hands and fingers. It feels like an electric current is passing through me. It hurts actually. I am hurting with the anger surging through me.
I have used anger as a currency throughout my treatment. I am not angry I got breast cancer. I have never attached my anger to that. I have been angry for a number of reasons – the way I have felt, the loss of my hair, my identity, my energy, my looks, the way I had to go to bed on a Friday night when the world was alive and kicking, the fact my kids had to go through their Mum having cancer…oh God, this list is quite a large one!
This anger is different and it doesn’t take me long to know what my body is reacting to. I am angry I am giving up this short period of my life again to immerse my right breast and the body attached to it, back into the world of cancer treatment. Cancer treatment to me means needles, nausea, fear, anxiety, loss, grief, anger, pain, medication, isolation…. it means handing over control to medication, professionals who administer it, and hoping to God my body can stand up for itself and take it gracefully. I have had a taste of what life can feel like when this no longer mixes into your days and your hours…. and I have loved it.
The hospital I have to attend is about an hour and 20 minutes away. I am going to be driving myself each time as it’s such a lot to ask of my husband and friends, and to be honest I haven’t actually driven myself more than about 10 miles since this I had cancer, so I am looking forward to this aspect of the treatment. 160 minutes on my own – no kids or husband – just me. BLISS….I can sing, I can ring my friends, I can think……. and thinking is what consumes me on my first travel there for the assessment.
I think back to my childhood. I think back to being about 8-9 years of age – I am living in Southport and my Mum has just moved us there to be with our new ‘Dad’. So everything has changed and everything is new. I have a new school, new friends, a new bedroom, and of course a new parent. I can’t remember much about him now or what I initially thought of him. It’s all a blur, as most of my childhood is – my memories have got blurred between the pages of my mind. I have closed off to the trauma and the misery I was subjected to. That stuff got filed away years ago. Sometimes I get frustrated that I can’t recall much, but I am of the mind, that my brain is protecting me from the complete horror of what my childhood was based on. Others around me of that time (not my sister) will disagree with this. What I do know though is I have spent the majority of my adult life exploring and correcting these informative years, so I do know something was wrong during that time. Very wrong.
I am drawn into a memory I do have. I had built in wardrobes in the bedroom I shared with my sister. We had one each. They were square like shapes which from my younger mind’s perspective were large. Well, large enough to create a desk space in to house all of my treasures and belongings. I remember pulling out all of my clothes, shoes etc and storing them under the bed where they stayed for some time, as I now had a small space that was just mine. Not shared with anyone – it belonged to me, and I adored it. Bear in mind at this age I had never had my own space – my own bedroom. I shared a bedroom with my sister and my Mum for many years before the uplift to this new life in Southport. I have always insisted that my three children have their own rooms – a space they can call their own and be themselves it.
So, here I had my ‘office’ – that’s what I called it. I decorated it with posters, pictures of cats, and anything else that was appealing to me at that young age. There were posters of Nik Kershaw too I think. My safe haven, and in here I was surrounded by what mattered. And I remember feeling very safe indeed. Looking back now and seeing what this meant to me sends shivers down my spine. At that age I craved safety and I had to create it myself. On my desk was small drawers and trinkets where I kept my ‘stuff’. For some weird reason I kept Polo mints in there. Little neat stacks of mints – there for me when I fancied one. I could take or leave them now. Strange. And here lies my thinking as I find my way to the hospital I will be visiting for 10 days for radiotherapy. I wondered as my smaller self whether or not these Polo mints had feelings. I knew I had feelings at that age and I knew some of them weren’t very nice to experience. I felt like they did, so I made sure I treated them well. I didn’t want them to feel like me. I only know that now after years of counselling and being counselled. I have the knowledge now about the psychology of counselling children and young people. I know I was trying to make those Polo mints feel like I wanted to feel……cared for and unconditionally loved.
Writing this feels strange. So I guess reading it will too. I have never told anyone this before. I think deeper with this and see that as a small child, I was looking to fix or mend others (or in this case Polo mints) who I worried were unhappy. Fast forward nearly 40 years and look at what I do for a living. Not fix of course, but I am still providing the right conditions for another hurt human being to feel heard, respected and much more importantly – safe. It was always in me. I have always had the drive to nurture pain and I am drawn to distress and want to support.
As I enter the building and drag my eyes away from the signs above me reading ‘West Wales Cancer Centre’, I am still mulling over my thoughts. Have I gone through this cancer experience to give me a deeper empathic awareness for others in a similar position? I believe I have. I have been sent something so damn hard to live through and manage and I have tried my utter best to take it on and come through it. You are going to change when you have cancer and chemotherapy. I am changing and I am aware of this on so many levels. I interact differently with others and with myself. My values and principles remain in place, it’s what goes on around them that is moving. They will all change in the longer term I am sure.