Welcome to the c word

I rarely show the world what is going on inside it is just not my style. I hide pain and constantly worry about worrying other people and how they will feel about how I am feeling. I keep my problems to myself and sometimes even from my closest friends. Well not this time.

I have been on the c word roller-coaster (I'm calling it the c word to go easy on the faint hearted) for over three weeks now and have decided it is a good idea to write down what's happened, happening and going to happen then whoever wants to keep up to date can without being forced to hear about it through emails from me. Because you will all have days where you just can't or don't want to hear about this. I get that it’s ok.

I hope not but you also might meet people or know people who go through something similar and it might just help them in some way to know they are not alone and when they fall apart it is ok because who wouldn’t. When you read this please forgive grammar and spelling etc I have not slept for three days and sorry too if it is up and down that is pretty much how I am doing most days.

- Tuesday 23rd February 2010

Saturday 27 March 2010

Dips in the dark

As I have previously referred to it one way to describe this is like being on an extreme roller-coaster you were forced onto. The ups are filled with the bitter sweet knowledge that inevitably you will have to come down again and there is no real way of knowing when the dips will appear sometimes you can see them and sometimes you are completely in the dark. You can't simply step off when you want to and you have no idea when it will be over. Oh and everyone around looks scared and there is always that one or two who don't seem so fussed on the surface.

Last night was one of those dips in the dark.
I fell asleep on Phil's lap as I used to quite often do before I had this affection embargo enforced. I miss affection so much, it seems like the cruellest irony that when you need hugs the most you physically cannot give or receive them. When I awoke disorientated my pain killers had worn off so in a very assertive rush the right affected quarter, throat, ear and back all fought for immediate attention. Yet the worse part was I had forgotten, totally drifted into a nice sleep and forgotten I even have cancer. I went to sleep weeping thinking about how everyone I knew had something they were looking forward to graduating, birthdays, weddings, holidays, babies, travelling and it is not that I felt any resentment whatsoever I just so badly wanted to be among them, last night I would have given anything to not be in my shoes. Phil said he had never seen me look so scared while he stroked my tear soaked hair as I fell asleep.
Today I feel more positive, must be slowly climbing another peak, who knows how long it will last. Sometimes you just have to smile and hold on tight.

I am reading my Dads book he is currently writing, it is in a word amazing. I never really thoroughly took the details in last year when he sent me bits of it at a time but this time round it's like I have new eyes. He describes his childhood so eloquently, capturing exactly how it feels to be a child full of innocence, fear, anger and curiosity. It is like I am there surviving it with him, I was so much like him when I was younger and I am so much like him now but it takes delving in to his inner most thoughts to see it clearly. He talks about his fondness for his dog Bob and running out back of the new house they had just moved into with Bob leaping through weeds as high as him and feeling like he was king of the garden. One of my most vivid memories of childhood was moving into a new rather run down house and being released like a excited whirlwind into the back garden with my bouncy bearded collie Frisby. I never knew how high Frisby could bounce till that day. The weeds were so tall I could have got totally lost in there for days, all I could see whilst I ran through the tall grass and flowers, feeling very Alice in wonderland, was Frisby leaping above the grass in a happy frenzy with me, best friend forever. I suppose it leads me to thinking that with childhood being such a beautiful experience for me because of everything my parents gave, gave up, believed in, strived for, provided that to watch their daughter, they spent years of their lives protecting from harm, have cancer at 30 must be every parents worst nightmare come true.

But at least I WILL be ok. My heart goes out to anyone who loved and lost someone to this disease, because to go on this tiring journey is bad enough but to then to lose the person you have travelled with must be unfathomably painful, I can only begin to imagine.

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