You don’t know me but I know you. We have met many times before. You crash into people’s lives uninvited, destroy dreams, take away the future they planned and their dreams along with that. You steal their peace of mind and replace it with anguish, fear, sadness and grief.
You are a sneak thief, creeping in without being seen or felt, spreading your damage with nobody aware of your presence. We don’t want you c. Nobody wants you but here you are! Not satisfied with taking those already taken, those we loved and knew, you continue to inflict your poison not only on your prey, but on everyone in the lives of your victims.
You put grief for those we love, in place of surety of a future. We talk of people dying from cancer but what about those living with it? David is fit, active and healthy but because of you, a stowaway on our journey that is called life, he has to undergo treatment that could make him poorly. Give him problems, make him unwell. Yes that may be temporary but this will happen and he does not deserve any of it! You have put fear into us, both your victim and the people who love that victim. You were not invited, we didn’t want you , we didn’t even know you were there! How cowardly and cruel is that! You gave us no warning, we didn’t go looking for you. A simple routine test and suddenly, there you were with all you nasties, all your fear, pain and heartache.
You make us angry, not with our loved ones but with you! I hope I am speaking for all of us who are on this unwanted journey alongside those you have tainted with your evil disease.
You have crept in and caused the reason for our sadness and fear, cunningly, quietly giving us no chance to shut you out because we didn’t even know you were coming. An unwanted and unexpected ‘guest’ at our table.
But most of all you give us helplessness, something I for one, find hard to cope with. So Damn you cancer. Damn Damn Damn you!!
Yes I am angry but mostly I am afraid. For my husband and what is ahead for him but more afraid of the unknown for us both. Afraid that feeling as sick as I do now, with my own health problems, that I will not be strong enough to cope. To care for this man I love. I would do anything to take his place. Anything.
Friends say ‘You are the strong one Carol Ann, look what you have been through so far and survived. You will cope’. But I have my doubts, especially on days like today. I have scary irrational and intrusive thoughts, that bombard my aching mind without respite. I ask myself, ‘I feel so weak, I am in such pain how will I cope feeling this way?’ At first I don’t have an answer.
I wrote in an earlier blog, not to you cancer, but to readers, that as a child I was never allowed to say ‘It’s not fair’ or ‘I hate..’. Well do you know what? I grew up in a dysfunctional family without the love of a mother, without love that was showered on my siblings and without feeling safe. I was often the scapegoat. I never ever said it wasn’t fair. I suffered a lifetime of CSA, lived in fear and pain. I never once said it wasn’t fair. I never hated. I was helpless. But as I said, I grew up. I eventually found lasting love in David, found happiness and love . I wrote my story, recovered enough to deal with the legacies of my childhood and even then never hated.
Today, this morning, I was that child again. Living in fear, in pain and terror and helpless to a fault. How dare you creep back in, as ‘family’ did a few years ago, through the back door, silently with no one knowing what was happening and try to steal the reason for my happy life where fear didn’t exist! How dare you take people from those who love them, in such a cowardly horrible way?!
You stole many in my life with your cancerous illness, loved ones who didn’t survive your onslaught. Relatives, siblings and best friends, now you think you can steal my man, my rock, my life! Well not on my watch! I need to be kinder to me in all of this, give myself some leeway.
So I have given myself permission to say it’s not fair. Permission to feel scared, angry and sad. I need to try to look after ‘little Carol Ann’, to make her well enough to fight her fears and gain strength from remembering how far I have come. I thought I had survived the worst that could happen in my life but was not ready for you. I need to try to find the fight that I used to have.
Tomorrow is a new week, I am hoping this sickness I have will turn a corner and I will be on my way to recovering and fit to face whatever life throws at us next. You won’t keep me down for long, believe me.
So cancer; my enemy and every one elses’ enemy, sorry, but medicine has improved, people are working all over the world to toss you out with the garbage. When all of this is over, when I have regained my strength, helped my man through this, hopefully comfort him if he feels scared, carry him if he is weak and love him all through, I will, with every ounce of my being, fight you all the way to your own death. Your extinction.
Yes I will shed more tears, some out of fear for where we find ourselves, some of anger and frustration but mark my words, I won’t go down without a fight. I will win.We will win and we will one-day have a world without you.
Carol Ann the strong is a formidable character, and I hope she will be back here very soon, so watch out!
Get ready.
Your enemy
Carol Ann
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