The journey has all but ended. I’ve recently been quite lazy with my updates for no real apparent reason. The last time I wrote I was over the moon, having just received news that my tumour reduced in size. A great accomplishment I must admit. I have just come off another round of chemotherapy and have been feeling quite good, despite the toxins.
Cancer is a tough one. When I was first diagnosed, my doctors informed me that I needed a very strong support network. I did, and I still have one. What the doctors or other people I have met failed to inform me was that cancer can also tear a person’s world apart. Not just in the obvious way. Relationships fail, and friendships dwindle. The constant pain, the drugs and discomfort to normal life can be brutal to someone with cancer.
After a few months of constant fighting I decided to walk away from my two and half year relationship with my partner. It was one of the hardest decisions I think I’ve made to date. Leaving the one you love isn’t easy. I could have stayed, but the end result would have been the same. Many times in life we do things that aren’t the best for us. I was discussing this with a friend recently, how we continue to move forward yet not entirely for ourselves. We stay in relationships or workplaces because it is comfortable or because we don’t want to enter the unknown. It isn’t fair. Not on anyone to do so. So I left. I packed up my things and walked away. The void of a loved one is there but, peace of mind has returned. No longer am I worried about what the day will bring. I am focused on my health and getting better. It’s selfish, but it is what’s most important right now.
A relationship falling apart I can understand, but friendships dwindling aren’t so easy to accept, (as friendships don’t usually have the same strain as a relationship). As we all know friendships just like relationships require effort from both sides. Sometimes friendships fall apart when someone enters a relationship, (the so called relationship cave) but it is hard for me to understand how one can fall apart because of cancer. I will be the first to admit that I don’t really make an effort with friends anymore. It is just too hard. Between doctors’ visit and treatment there really is only one thing on a patients mind. Most people in my life understand this. They make the effort. They come and visit; they make dinner arrangements and pick me up when I am unable to drive. For these people I am eternally grateful. It is because of you that I leave the house some days. If you didn’t make all the effort I would just be lying in bed. The others however, call on the rare occasion. Make small talk and I never see them. They get angry when you don’t call. They get angry when you are unable to get out of bed. I understand cancer can be scary, but why not be scared with me?

3 Months is a long time… Over the past 3 months there have been many changes. For starters I finally have good news! 3 weeks ago I was told that the tumour, which has over taken my body and my life, has begun to shrink. After nearly a year of chemo and radiotherapy and drastic diet changes, it has begun to shrink. And not by a small amount. A 73% reduction in its size. 73%! It feels like everything that I have been through; the throwing up, the pain, the treatment and the crap food is starting to pay off.
I have been off chemo now for about 3 weeks and I have never felt better. I’m going to the gym and working and living a so-called normal life. The crap food is still a major part of it, but I feel there is no real reason to go back and eat a lot of junk food that could work against me. I have told everyone of this amazing result and for a while there I started to feel that I didn’t have cancer anymore. But the truth is I do. A 73% reduction is amazing but that still means that a substantial amount of it is still in my spine.
The next plan of attack is MORE chemo! I can’t say that I’m surprised really. Doctors still believe that this is the best thing. Pushing more and more toxins’ into our bodies.

No change. That’s what the doctor said. There is no change. It isn’t worse but at the same time it isn’t better, He held up my scans and it was exactly the same. After an extra 3 months of chemotherapy there is no change.
The doctor wasn’t totally bummed, he was happy that it hadn’t spread and he was ready to give out another dose of chemo. There is talk of having a thing implanted into my body to give me a daily dose of chemo. But if that happens I would be bed ridden almost certainly and the chances of living a so-called normal life will go out the window. No more work, no more going to the movies or watching my sunsets. I’m told to do everything in my power to stay positive…

When I heard the news I smiled for the doctor. I went and collected my medication for the week and made an appointment to have more chemo. As soon as I left the hospital I fell apart. I cried like a baby on the side of the road. I’m at a point where I don’t know what to do next. Doctors seem to just want to inject more crap into my body and it just makes me so weak. It makes me not want to get out of bed. It makes me want to run away or crawl under a rock. Life just doesn’t seem like life anymore. My partner keeps buying and reading books to help me deal with cancer. To help me eat well to help my body fight. It’s strange, that with all these people around me I’ve never felt more alone in my life.

I recently came across this passage in a book I was reading;
That is why it is so important to let certain things go. To release them. To cut loose. People need to understand that no one is playing with marked cards; sometimes we win and sometimes we lose. Don’t expect to get anything back, don’t expect recognition for your efforts, don’t expect your genius to be discovered or your love to be understood. Complete the circle. Not out of pride, inability or arrogance, but simply because whatever it is no longer fits in your life. Close the door, change the record, clean the house, get rid of the dust. Stop being who you were and be who you are.

Autumn has begun to set in here in Sydney. The air is crisp and cool. The need to wear a light sweater or cardigan is there once again. It’s nice to be able to feel the change in seasons even though there is as yet no change to my condition.
During this time of me having cancer I have tried my best to keep my life as normal as possible. I go to work when I can; working minimal hours and days does help. I go for my morning walks and still manage to be the upbeat person I have always tried to be. This week however the side effects from chemo have been probably the worse yet, and being at work doesn’t help at all! My body creaks like it is in need of some WD40 and there are extra liver spots each day.
But I keep being told to have hope. Be positive, and try not to let everything get to me. For the most part I think I’ve done quite well. But I just want to run away. No no, fly away, far far away. I want to be in North Africa. Trek through Libya on the back of a horse all the way to Spain. Stop off in Morocco and for once again be just me. I don’t want to be a boyfriend, a brother, a son, a friend, a colleague, a teacher or a person with cancer. I just want to be me. I know that all these things come together to make me who I am, but I just want to be free of them. For the most part having cancer isn’t the worst thing. Its what comes with it. For days now the side effects have been getting worse and worse. Its strange that now that I’m off chemotherapy for a few weeks, that my side effects get worse. It’s as if my body had become so accustomed to them, it needs them. Like a drug. I’ve always had an addictive personality but this is beyond normal. Even for me.
I have just finished reading another amazing book. A dear friend of mine said that, with all this time on my hands, the only thing to do is to grow mentally and learn. So that’s what I have been doing. Reading and learning. Sitting in chemo or in bed and reading. I have just completed another book, which moved me to my core (it doesn’t take much these days). The underlying message was to forget the past and live now. Life is too short for anything but love, and when we live in the past we focus less on giving love in the present. It really annoyed me, as right now sure, I am supposed to be living in the moment trying to get better; but I love looking back at all the memories and people who have made my life what it is.

One more session. One more session, that’s what I keep telling myself. There is always an underlying fear that this isn’t going to end. It’s going on 9 months now and it doesn’t seem that anything is getting better.
Chemo is a bitch. Forget the vomiting and the bleeding. Forget about the weakness and not being able to move or function properly. It’s the feeling of the Chemo in my body. I feel it. I know it’s in me. From the moment I sit in that chair and they attach the paraphernalia to me, I can feel it. I hate it. It’s cold and I feel it spreading in my veins making my body sicker than it already is. But this they tell me is what is going to make me better. I lay awake at night wondering how something that kills everything in your body is supposed to make you better.
I have tried a few treatments. From radiotherapy to stereo- tactic radiotherapy and now chemotherapy. It’s amazing that in 2010 the only real options we have to treat cancer are ones that kill everything in the process. I’m told to be aggressive with my treatment; but how much more aggressive can a person get. One more session.
I don’t know where this is all headed. I know nobody out there really knows what the future holds, but this is somehow different. Its like the imminent feeling that death is approaching.
But I hope and I pray (something I haven’t done that often). I pray that I will live to see another day. I pray that in two weeks time I get good news. I pray that I get better. And not only for myself. For my family. For my partner. For my friends. The ones who call, message, email, the ones who visit me in hospital and hold my hand as I walk down to the car. The ones who sit by me on the sofa rub my head and tell me that everything will be ok.
I’m always thinking why me? Why did I get cancer? Why do I have to go through all this? But until recently I didn’t think; Why me? Why is everyone I love and care about so attentive and always there? I may have cancer and I may die, but I feel so lucky to have the people I do around me. Even if they are an ocean or two away, I’m blessed to have them in my life…

I finally did it. I told my mother. Now I guess there are many variations on the truth and with all the pressure from close friends and family I guess it was time I told her. I didn’t tell her everything. I couldn’t. It may seem selfish not to have told her for so long but I just couldn’t look her in the eyes and inflict this pain on her. After 8 months I told her. I told her that I had just found out I had a tumour in my neck and that it was small and that it was totally treatable. She was upset, obviously. But she was strong and she handled it well. I’m not sure how she would have handled it had she known the full truth.
A part of me is really glad she knows what she does. At least she wont be surprised if I end up on life support. A prospect, which seems not unlikely. The past week or so has been quite difficult. I haven’t been to work and I really haven’t been off the sofa. (It’s not all bad. We have had such terrible weather here in Sydney that staying at home under a blanket isn’t that bad.) I went to my doctor almost every day and all he could say was that it’s just a part of the treatment. I should have been weak from day one. But I’m not letting it get to me. It’s easy to get overwhelmed. And overwhelmed I have been.
I have found a new past time, one which I adore. I remember a dear friend of mine. Whilst we were in Taiwan she used to finish her afternoon classes and go sit on her rooftop. She was in love with the sunset and that used to fill her day. I used to laugh at her thinking what was the point. Now things have changed. I get up early to watch the sunrise and I sit and watch the sunset over the hills from the rear balcony. I do it and think of her. I think of the times we spent together thinking we were fooling everyone else.
Having cancer has its perks. It opens eyes. It forgives. It lets the past stay in the past. I don’t want to be a hypocrite, but I guess I got to learn from this. Learn to mellow out. Learn to love. Learn to forgive. And above all learn to be myself