May Contain Nuts

It’s funny how a year doesn’t seem as long as it feels.

This time last year I had so many worries and concerns about what was going to happen in the future. About what my treatment was going to be. About what surgery would be like. About losing my hair, about losing me. The thought of being stuck at home and feeling ill. Yet here I am, a year later, and it’s all a distant memory. Which feels so weird.

I had six months of chemotherapy, I lost all my hair, I felt sick for the majority of it, but still seems like a distant memory.

Have I changed? Physically yes. Mentally, absolutely. I still feel like me but there are a few things that have changed. I don’t have the patience with people that I used to have. I now hear people moaning and complaining, and all I can think is – what is your problem? We are only on this planet for a short time. Why be unhappy? And don’t get me started on people who complain about having a cold. I would’ve loved to have had a cold, but I got cancer instead.

A part of me has broken in the past year. I’m not overly anxious. I think I know that if it comes back, I can cope. I’ve had a part of me amputated, so I am mourning the loss of that part of my body. I’m not the same shape, or fitness, or size. That doesn’t matter. But I do feel broken.

I don’t want to hear about your friend who had it and how they are doing. I don’t really care what size or what kind of cancer they had/have. I don’t want to hear that they are out doing things, or what they have been up to, or what they did. It feels like I am being compared to others and that is when the break gets bigger. I never felt broken. It’s only when my journey is compared to others that I feel it.

I know that every cancer patients journey is different. Do you know that every cancer patients journey is different? Do you know that everyone’s treatment is specific to them? Do you know that if I was given your brothers/sisters/aunts/friends chemotherapy that it may not have cured me? Or that it may have killed me? So why are you comparing me to them? You think that you aren’t but you are. I had cancer, I am having treatment. It’s a probability that it will come back. It may even be the thing that kills me. Don’t compare me to anyone else. Just like I’m sure that they don’t want to be compared to me.

People say that I am brave, a warrior, amazing, a superstar. I look at their faces and I see the pity and sadness there, so I become animated and I make them laugh because I don’t want their fears to seep in. I worry that if it does it will break me even more. They have stopped seeing me. They just see cancer.

Am I like this because I’m reaching the anniversary of firsts? Maybe it’s because my hormones are at an all time low. But I could really do without people right now.