I hope that in sharing my story I will be able to help someone else through their experience, or help someone to understand what it's like.

Part 2 – The Ripple

This next stage I wrote one night when I couldn’t sleep. It’s still very close and raw. This is a small part of my journey that is still a big part of my life…

Everything should be perfect… but it's not. Does anyone understand or know how I feel? Probably not… I don’t believe it’s because they don’t care, I think it's because with time you know exactly what to say for people to think you’re this amazing strong person and that you are coping and that nothing can ever hold you back. But there is a lot of pain behind that smiling face. It’s tempting to say brave but if I was truly brave you would see the pain.

I hate hospitals but who doesn’t? I hate tablets but who doesn’t? I hate the very things that keep me alive. Is that fair? I honestly don’t know. I love my doctor who I have a great relationship with. He saved my life yet I hate seeing him. How does that work? I hate seeing the disappointed look on his face when I walk in and know something is not right with my blood test. He gets this twitch on the side of his mouth. The only reason I notice is because I can’t bear to look him in the eye. He always asks the same question “Tablets - how many, how often?” I reply with the same answer – a few here and there when I remember.

I can’t explain why I just don’t take them, but in my mind it’s not that simple. I wake up, throw myself into my day in the hopes I can keep myself busy enough not to be able to stop and think about anything. So when the time comes for the very life-saving thing I have to take, I put it off. Not because I want to die, not because I’m trying to make a point and definitely not because I want to get sick again. Just simply “because”. I always think I will take them before I go out and then I go without taking them. Then it turns into “I’ll do it as soon as I get home” but again I am side tracked and when I remember them again it’s another time in the future that I will take them. I am scared that there wont be a future soon enough. But then there is always the thought that maybe that would be for the best.

He has sent me to a shrink. I think after 4 years he finally caught on to my game or maybe I let my walls down just a little too far and he peered in over the top. It’s awful the feelings you get, the knot in your throat because you want to cry but you don’t know why. The emptiness that slowly creeps into your gut until you feel nothing but sadness and longing.
   
If you talk to me and ask me how I am going I will lie. I think I have started saying I’m great in the hopes that one day I might actually believe it. I have my good days where I feel normal and don’t think twice about what I am doing and then I have my bad.

"Everyone I know knows I'm different"

I'm not the normal 19 year old. I missed out on the years of my life that should define who I am. I don’t even know who I am. I wish I could give it back. I wish I could just be NORMAL. But deep down inside I know I never will be. I don’t know if I will ever find myself.

When I was first diagnosed they had to start treatment immediately. If they didn’t start it within two weeks I could have been considered terminal. I remember them offering me a harvesting option but at best it would take three months. I was 15 and made the decision that I would NEVER conceive my own children.

I’m at the age where kids are starting to appear around through friends and family. Or you get the simple question of is there any possibility you could be pregnant when getting an x-ray or something simple. Just the wording alone could make you believe that they already know the answer. But you answer politely with a small smile and continue on. Or you are about to have surgery and they ask you for a sample for testing just to make sure you aren’t pregnant. From there you continue to go on and tell them that it’s impossible and you would rather not go to the trouble as it’s not a pleasant thing to do when it’s completely unnecessary. They ask how you are so certain and you reply with the same answer you have since you started this lifelong journey.

As it begins the polite smile is on my face and the words begin to spill from my mouth without a second thought. I state the same answer I have stuck by all these years. “I can’t have kids from all the chemo and radiation. I didn’t really have much of an option. It’s OK, I always wanted to adopt. There are too many children in the world who need love, why bring another one in when I can help one of them?” and always adding on the end a cheeky grin. This is where that look appears on their face like you are a god and they are mesmerised. Not mesmerised with empathy though, only complete sympathy. So you finish it off with another smile. “Hey, there is no way I could be carrying a baby if I was dead. It’s OK”.  Then with another look of some sort of admiration the nurse will say how brave and wise for your years you are, and how you’re such an amazing person.

For the first year or so after I made that decision I believed it and each year after it began to sink in. It’s only in the last year or so that it has really hit home. My sister has 4 kids so I began adding “She is starting to make up for me”. When the truth is that now every time I say it that knot magically appears in my throat as if I am being strangled by the joke I am trying to make as my insides begin to feel as though they are going through a grinder, over and over. Followed by quickly looking away and composing myself. I say it every time and I finish it with that cheeky grin, and no-one before today knows that

"I want to have children of my own"

Everyone has given me that same look, the same eyes and same reaction. It’s a human instinct. I want to have the opportunity to give life to another that is made partly of me. But I know it will never happen. It’s important that people know it was MY decision. Although my parents blame themselves, its not their fault. Occasionally we talk about it and it’s often the first thing I think of when I get into a relationship. It’s not only myself I am taking that right away from – eventually I will be taking that right away from the person who I love. How do you tell someone that?

This is just the tip of a very big iceberg, but I do believe the rest needs to stay underwater for a while yet. With time I am sure everything will come out but I need to deal with one obstacle at a time. I always say that I would never give my cancer experience back for anything, but when I really deeply think about it I would trade it in a second. To take away the pain and grief my family went through, maybe even to take away the guilt that I have for putting them through it. Although one thing I say and I say it a lot is that “I would do it forever if meant that my none of my family will ever have to go through the cancer experience” and that I truly do mean.  And when I say that it is my face AND my emotions showing, not the smiling facade that I use in my absence. Just please don’t look at me with those eyes.

This is my story, the one thing that truly eats away at me. Everyone has their demons that pop up during or after their cancer experience. I was able to deal with mine in a way that is letting me move forward. I don’t think I would have made it through my cancer experience or so far out the other side without the support of CanTeen. There are so many organisations out there that offer some amazing support, you just need to reach out. They’re waiting to help in whatever way they can. Just reach out, it could possibly be the best thing you have ever done.