I am cooked.
Radiotherapy is over. The treatment is over.
I started this blog back in March and it was my intention to use it as a personal history of the treatment (always worth knowing which day X happened or Y said something), as well as leaving something behind in cyberspace for posterity. Colin and Malcom may be dead, but they live on via this blog, just as their legacy to me is hanging over my head.
What happens now? Well, I see House and Scouse in November as a post-radio follow-up; any long term side effects will be apparent then. In March I will have a mammogram on both breasts to check for relapse...and every March after that for a long, long time. Anything dodgy turns up, they'll know pretty darn quick. Of course, I do have to pop a pill every day for the next 5 years to stop that pesky female hormone oestrogen talking to the receptive cells in my breasts...
So bring on the continued slam-in-the-wall menopause, the increased risk of womb cancer and, I suppose, the increased risk of cancer generally. Someone told me 99% of all people who survive initial cancer will go on and actually die from cancer. Obviously, it may not be for many decades, but once your ticket is punched, your ticket is punched.
Me? I have always believed I would die by the age of 50 (I am sure I wrote that somewhere in this blog and the reasons why???). I do not believe I will make old bones and never have. This confirms my belief. I still think I will be dead by 50 and now I just realise it will probably be from cancer. Hey ho, could be worse...
...you know, if cancer is the way you are going to go, it's not so bad; better cancer than a car crash or axe murderer. Time to organise yourself. Time to organise the end of your life. Time to reconcile, time to say 'seeya' to those you know and love.
People have called me pragmatic, chilled, matter-of-fact. I think my blog shows some of this, but if you have read it all the way through you will see I had my moments of fear and stress. Not a lot mind you...
It's not all negatives either. You can learn a lot from having cancer and a threatened early death. I have learnt to chill more, appreciate friendships, know that you can't always do what you want, when you want...
Most of all, I have learnt about myself. I am a bloody strong person, stronger than I ever imagined. I know what my coping mechanisms are and how I arrived at them. I know a lot more about myself than I did pre-Colin, believe me.
One of the things I have been doing over the last week or so is looking at my regrets. Bollocks to people who say 'you should never regret'. Everyone regrets. There are 'key' moments in my life where I wished I had taken an alternative path...don't you lot look at this and say anything...you lot don't have the focus I do! If I said 'you are going to die, what would you have done differently in your life' you could look over your life and say 'oh yeah, such and such' but that sword isn't over your head.It's make believe. It is over mine. And I so wish I had done some things differently.
I have regrets. Learning to accept them is what I have to do now.
It's funny, you'd think I would be full of 'joy' that I have finished treatment, that every day is precious and I should seize life and wring as much out of it as possible. You know how people who have had a serious brush with mortality do the things they have always put off? Yet I don't entirely feel like that. Some of the things I really want to do could take years, and I might not have years left and so I don't actually want to start something I might not finish. Not sure. Bit up in the air right now...
...I know of a woman who went through all the treatment I did. That was two years ago. This week, she has found out that she has cancer in her liver. She has secondary breast cancer. You don't come back from secondary cancer very often. It's just a little reminder that there is no such thing as an 'all clear'. I can't say I am clear of cancer. I hope I am, but there are no definites when it comes to breast cancer. Perhaps that is why I am not full of joy?
I am, this minute, stripped down. I am a bare essential human being. Every thing I was before cancer seems either gone or different. I can't be entirely sure which bits will come back or which bits are changed forever. Kylie said something similar in interviews post-treatment. I getcha, Kylie.
Some fucking hair would be nice, though.
Thank you and goodnight.
