My painting for my Surgeon
Hey creative buddies, I recently made this painting for my surgeon as a thankyou gift. I named this painting cosmic connection. I will be doing a lot more in the coming days while I enjoy my chemo journey :) Hopefully one day I can start my own exhibitions and sale my paintings to raise funds for everyone going through the breast cancer journey. I pledge to support all my cancer mates with anything little I can do to contribute. 😍
Writing to express yourself
Hello there, Has anyone else felt the urge to write or be creative to express how you are feeling about your diagnosis/ treatment? If so, what do you do with your pieces? I wrote a poem about chemotherapy, and I don't know what to do with it. All I can think of is to share it here. So here it is: Chemo sucks balls – A Poem On a scale of one to balls, chemo sucks balls. I hate sitting in the ward as the nurse jabs at my veins with his needles. I feel guilty that I harbour momentary ill will towards him, this man who works to help me. Blank faced while poison pumps through my body, I fight to stay calm as though this were a normal thing to do on a Wednesday morning. I see other people in the ward and wish that they were not there, having poison pumped through their bodies. We don’t talk – we are bound in solidarity, yet maintain our solitary thoughts. I hate the tiredness that overcomes me as anti-nausea medication takes effect. I ebb and flow through consciousness, aware but unengaged with my mother’s attempts to cheer me. At home I feel heavy, hollow, ill. I make the sounds and nod the nods to indicate I am alright, I will be alright soon. Nausea follows sleep and restless sleep awakes to nausea. The days pass. Is this living? Where did the week go? I wait for the haze to lift to feel human once more. I hate the strange taste and feel I find in my mouth after treatment. A feeling indescribably dull yet unrelenting, as though my teeth and tongue are not my own. Smells too strong make my stomach turn – how strange that my clothes should repel me because they smell too much like me. I observe these physical phenomena from a distance, waiting until they abate. This is but a point in time, I think. I awake each morning hopeful for my regular senses returned. I hate the shift in identity as breaking hair falls through my fingers. The world now knows – I am a cancer patient. I was naively hopeful as I whisked hair from the bottom of the shower; the coming days dash hopes when I find hair on my pillow, on my couch, on my clothes. Frustrated, I cut it short and suddenly I am a new version of me, the version who wears a head scarf and contemplates wigs. I dig deeper and fold this new me in, lest in anger I spit it out. I hate that other people must experience this strange “therapy” called chemo. My heart breaks for children who surely struggle to understand why the medicine makes them sick. My soul hurts for the elderly who endure this at the end of their lives, a trauma where there should be peace. I anger for people young and healthy, like me, who are told we are not in fact healthy, and we must be poisoned to be better. Chemo is a cruel and unusual punishment for sins unknown. On a scale of one to balls, chemo sucks balls.
