Special
Feature Edition: Pathways to Resilience: Embracing our Vulnerability,
Celebrating our Resilience
The Cowards Guide to Cancer...
Is bravery essential for survival? What do we do when we can’t feel brave? When we are too weak to feel brave? When our vulnerability takes the better of us, and we have no option but to commit to it. Are we a coward then? Or is bravery not an option on the menu of things to do to survive?
For our month long feature #pathways2resilience, Penny, another wonderful member of our centre, shares her resilience story 'The Coward’s Guide to Cancer' here, and how she made it to go public on The Sun Online, when she did not consider herself brave!
~
A close encounter with a bear while walking with a friend in Canada made me realise just what a coward I am. The bear was approaching us and we were alone. My friend had not seen it. Before setting off on the trail we had taken advice on how to behave should one meet a bear in the wild, but my mind went blank. Instinct took over. So what did I do? I pushed my friend between me and the bear and hid behind her. We survived, and I think we are still friends. We both know I may not be relied upon in moments of crisis.
To
me, bravery is that demonstrated by those prepared to dash into a burning
building to save others. I see bravery on those 999 style documentaries where
firemen and medics put their lives on the line to save a stranger. And yet,
from the moment I was diagnosed with cancer I was considered brave. Strangers
approached me in cafes, gently touched my arm and remarked on my bravery. What
nonsense. Each time I sat in a chemo chair while a nurse fed poison into my
veins I felt like the passive recipient of a treatment that sometimes seemed
worse than the disease, yet if I wanted to survive this seemed the only option.
Hardly a brave a decision. At times I thought, “bring it on, consider me
brave”, I’m not immune to the joys of a compliment however ill-deserved. Yet
gradually the bravery badge felt like a burden. Once I was labelled and praised
for my bravery it seemed there was a heavy expectation on me to cope, to not
look ill, to cry only in private, to protect those around me from the realities
of a dread disease.
But
I did cope. I had no choice. Often I did it through the care of remarkable
strangers who became “virtual” friends. I found these people online, in support
groups like “Inflammatory Breast Cancer Support UK”, “Building Resilience in
Breast Cancer” and “Flat Friends”. These groups are full of women who are not
brave, just remarkable. In these closed forums we can rant and rave, share our
fears and experiences in a way that we sometimes feel unable to do with our
nearest and dearest. I confess to having few people to call in the dead of
night complaining of chemo induced constipation and mouth ulcers or who want to
hear my steroid fuelled nightmares about dying and being laid to rest in my best
dress but bald. Yet online, there was usually someone ready, without judgement,
to "listen" and share similar fears and extraordinary body functions.
Through the best of intentions, those closest to us often don’t want to hear
that we are suffering, that we are scared or, perhaps more significantly, the
cancer has changed us. And I realised, that however often I cry, however often
I can’t face the changes to my body, however often I mourn the life I feel I
lost, like all the other women I am remarkable too.
I
was diagnosed with Triple Negative Inflammatory Breast Cancer in 2013. To all
intents and purposes I am “doing well”, but I still struggle at times to cope
with the after effects of the treatment which include nerve pain from
peripheral neuropathy, not to mention the absence of one of my tits. I wish
this hadn’t happened to me and yet it has strangely led to some great things.
Whilst
going through treatment I was encouraged to keep a diary. For the most part
this was pretty dull reading. “Today I felt sick”. “Today my hair fell out”.
“Today they lopped off my left tit”. I exaggerate, but you get my drift.
Gradually as my hair began to grow, my scars had healed and I tried to resume a
“normal” life, my diaries had a bit more to offer as I began to take stock of
the emotional impact of the cancer and facing a “new normal”. And I started to
blog at www.greatthingsaboutcancer.com .
Writing has been therapeutic. The more I shared about the frustrations of life
“post treatment” - dating with one tit, buying mastectomy bras, body image -
the more people got in touch with me to share their similar stories. From
feeling isolated, I felt connected. I always enjoyed writing but my motivation
waxed and waned, but now cancer has given me my writing mojo. I started
blogging for The Huffington
Post and was interviewed for the Mail and The
Sun online – I am no Page 3 babe and so I never imagined my tits (well
discussion about my tits) would ever make their way into The Sun.
My
marriage failed just before my cancer diagnosis. I’m over 50, single with just
one tit. This is not the life I had imagined for myself. Sometimes my future
feels bleak. And yet, by opening up about my feelings in public, it has in turn
opened up new horizons. These horizons range from the more bizarre, like being
an extra in a vibrator advertisement, to those which aid a cause like an
invitation next month to attend an All Party reception in Parliament in support
of Breast Cancer Now, or being treated to a makeover and wardrobe styling
session for a charity video for Macmillan
and Clothes Aid or being interviewed for a research project at London
Fashion School into how clothes and style impact on recovery in breast cancer.
Amongst all the fear, pain and loss, there has been fun. And most of all,
throughout it all, apparently I am VERY, VERY BRAVE!!!
#panningforgold
#pathways2resilience
#bcresiliencecentre
#breastcancerawareness
