Cancerversary

Hullo all, it is striking that so many of us have our " 'versaries" around this time of the year. I go to see my surgeon tomorrow, and I can hardly believe it is two years now since I was sitting in tears in the hospital begging for someone to tell my what my pathology/diagnosis was, following a left mastectomy. To his credit my surgeon came at once but explained he still did not have the final details. Since I had had a Breast Screen diagnosis more than 10 days before, from which I never received any pathology or diagnostic report, it was not surprising I was upset. I understood so very little of what was going on, what was going to happen, what it all would mean. All I knew was that it was cancer, and obviously a big one because I saw the Breast Screen mammogram, almost in secret. The whole process was tortuous in the extreme and although my surgeon was wonderful and did a great job, everything else seemed a welter of confusion and miscommunication. I was convinced it was deliberate, that they did not want to tell me exactly what was wrong or what my prognosis was. Of course, I believed they really did know. Now, after spending so much time reading about BC (in learned journals, books, memoirs and from this site) I realise that they really did not know - that there are so many forms of BC, so many variables, so many unknowns that the experts and specialists do a lot of guessing and hoping, guided by their expert knowledge and experience but still unable to be absolutely certain. And I realised that I was just one among so many, so very many going through the same awful experiences. This network has profoundly helped me to understand that it wasn't all about me.

So I just wanted to say, to those dear friends who are coming along behind us, and especially those going through the early phases of treatment right now (during the so-called "Festive Season") that for some at least it gets a lot better. Many say the psychological process of accepting the reality of what has happened takes two years, regardless of how the physical body heals.  That would be true for me. I have gone through so many painful emotions, loss, guilt, fear and especially at the beginning, anger. I didn't have chemo, because I refused (they all wanted me too, but I made that decision) but I had rads and am now on AIs (Femara). I didn't really start feeling better until a couple of months ago. I found a wonderful new oncologist (in part thanks to dear @kmakm to whom I am eternally grateful) and I had scans to make sure the bone pain in the neck and back wasn't mets (it wasn't); I still have passages of depression and withdrawal, but nothing like as bad as it was. Through this awful bushfire and smoke season I am thinking so much of others, of those who have lost their lives, their homes, their animals - and of the poor wildlife incinerated in our beautiful bushland. Somehow my issues seem not so pressing and I am grateful for what I do have, which really is so much.

It is strange thinking about the "old normal" and the "new normal". One can never go back - can never put your foot in the same stream as the Zen saying goes - but for me at my stage of life I think the new normal is better. I have had to give up a lot of illusions about myself and others. It's almost like opening a sore. I don't much like the person I used to be and I do feel I am trying to do better in everything with a more compassionate frame of thinking. So for those struggling at the beginning, here's wishing you all kinds of support, and for those of us who have come through our first two or more years, well done all!