Being told you have a terminal illness is terrifying. The moment in February when I heard the words "metastatic bone disease" my brain shut down and adrenaline took over. At the same time my stomach tried to turn itself inside out and I had to fight to keep my breakfast down. Suddenly I was no longer healing too slowly from a fractured vertebra, instead I was dying far too quickly with cancer in my bones. When I got home from the GP Pete and I cried. He held me tightly and we cried until we felt empty, until there were no more tears left(for the time being).
Later that day, on doctor's orders, Pete rushed me to the Emergency Department for an urgent MRI. I didn't leave the hospital for almost a week. During that time I was scanned, re-scanned, jabbed, medicated, poked, prodded and generally treated like a cancer diagnosis that happened to have a person attached to it. My diagnosis and treatment snowballed without any input from either Pete or I and I started to feel somewhat disconnected.
On my second morning in hospital a dear friend came in to see me (this was just as Covid restrictions were starting to ramp up). She walked in the door and we both burst into tears. We clung to each other as if she could somehow protect me or shield me from the cancer that had invaded my body. They were the first tears I had cried in hospital, and from memory they were also the last.
By the time I got home I was angry, frightened and desperately sad. I went through all the stages of grief multiple times over, in a seemingly never ending cycle, denial, anger, bargaining, depression and finally acceptance. I was angry a lot, angry that The Universe kept throwing these challenges at us but I was so tired. Too tired to rise to the challenge, or so I thought. I went into denial at times, refusing to accept that this was happening to me. After all we had done for our health and lifestyle after my first cancer diagnosis in 2011, including moving across the country to our tree change in Tassie, I couldn't accept that it was going to kill me after all. The final stage was acceptance. While I have accepted the diagnosis now, accepted that I have cancer in my neck, spine, ribs, shoulder, hips and pelvis, I have not accepted that it will kill me as soon as the doctors predict.
Being told that you have a terminal illness can also be a catalyst for positive change, for greater joy in living and gratitude for all the small things in life. After months of grieving I did finally find peace with the disease invading my body. I don't want to die and I certainly haven't stopped fighting. I truly believe I'm too young and have too much to live for to simply let the cancer win. I'm definitely not going to let my health situation stop me living my best life possible. If I only have 3 to 5 years left I'm going to make sure they are jam packed with living, loving, laughing and maybe even some dancing (on my best days). So while I've begun to fight back I've also taken stock and made myself (and Pete) some big promises.
I promise to keep fighting, to do everything I can to stack the deck in my favour. I promise to live every day rather than merely exist. I promise to keep hoping, to not give in to despair no matter how difficult some days are. I promise to become a better person through this experience. Finally I promise that every single day I will find at least three things to be grateful for and speak them out loud.
Today I'm grateful for the blue wrens who visit our garden most days, for the sunshine on my face and for my wonderful husband, the father of my children, to celebrate on Father's Day.
Everyday I'm grateful to have another day. I'm grateful to be able to get out of bed, to prepare delicious and nutritious meals for my family and to have another day to live, laugh and love. I'm grateful for zoom meetings that enable us to "attend" Tai Chi classes from our own living room. I'm grateful for all the information available on the internet that helps us plan ways to support our treatment and give us both better odds than traditional oncology alone is offering. I'm extremely grateful for our local naturopath and our integrative GP who both specialise in oncology support. Grateful for the generosity of friends, family and strangers that has enabled us to afford complimentary therapies which would otherwise have been out of reach. And grateful for the strength and stubborness of my amazing husband who won't let me give up even on really tough days.
I'm grateful for hope because at the end of the day another 3 to 5 years is not enough.
