This week’s blog is partly personal but mostly about my Journey with Prostate Cancer, the reason my blog began. All is relevant to where I find myself today.
As I said last week, David’s prognosis is so far very good. It allows us to look forward. To plan and be happy, something that has been missing for a while now. Being happy I mean. I don’t mean we were moping around but the curse that is cancer with a little ‘c’ was always there. I know we have the all clear but will be waiting for the year anniversary PSA just to make sure. During the last few years, ‘family’ stuff aside, I didn’t dare to wonder what it would be like, on the other side. When we had journeyed through this horror and arrived safe at the end of it. I wouldn’t let myself go there. But after seeing the consultant 2 weeks ago, I did. Briefly but I dared to go there. I have been ecstatic, deliriously happy as I said last time, but also in the depths of despair. David has recovered so well. And as far as his consultant is concerned the dreaded cancer has gone. In the past! Banished! So I have every reason to be happy and we both are really. But I wake up, expecting the blackness to descend on my calm, expecting that sudden rush of panic that I have had every day since his diagnosis. It’s an odd feeling. Almost like I am missing something. That something is not quite right. That’s when it hits me, there is something missing. Something that has accompanied me for the past 2 years and for many years in my early life. The ‘F’ word. The fear is not there anymore. This is a ‘miss’ I am grateful to have and will try to enjoy.
Many readers have messaged me in the past weeks, months, re my blog and wished us both well. Some of the ladies in the groups, say they have gained comfort from my words and for that I am humbled. The reason I began to write on here was to say how it is for the wives/partners of PC. Something not always acknowledged. Some have commented on the actual blog and I have allowed these comments to be published. This last week should have seen me getting my life back together happily with David. But sadly, no. When ‘c’ hits us, as I have said before, and something all of you know, the problems in our lives, already there, don’t diminish, go away, we still have them to deal with at the same time as the cancer. Likewise, when we come through the other side, we may have overcome the biggest of our worries, the ‘c’ word but the other nasties are still present. They didn’t go with the cancer, sad to say.
After my blog ‘After The Change. The return of the ‘F’ word’ and a postscript I wrote, I received a comment from the person the postscript was meant for. Telling me in no uncertain terms what I can and can’t write on social media. It was malicious, full of lies and threatening. After last week’s blog ‘Scary Expectations etc.’, I received another comment from the same person, this time trying to involve someone who is nothing to do with any of the lies being spread. At first the fear returned, I felt as I had as a little girl at the hands of my ‘mother’. Bullied and treated unfairly.But it didn’t stay for long. I was going to keep it to myself but decided to tell my husband. I spoke with David and he reassured me. He said ‘who do they, the gossips, think is interested in something that did or didn’t happen more than 49 years ago? No one!’ He is right. I haven’t approved the comments because they make me feel ashamed of the person who wrote them. I know the truth. The other person involved knows the truth and so do my family here, Marie and David. That is all that matters. I won’t be bullied any more. I won’t be told what I can or can’t do and be controlled by people whose sole purpose is to hurt me. They will fail. This is my blog. My life. My truth. But it was all I could think about. Any person with any decency, who knew what we had been through with PC would have backed off, left us alone; but no.
In my Psychotherapy work, I help clients recognize that fear is the thing that can hurt you most. But that you can overcome it. If your fear is illness of a loved one, as with cancer in my case, you support those going through it. They have the treatment and hopefully recover. If you are afraid of anything, running away doesn’t work. Ignoring the fear doesn’t work. I know this personally and with my work with clients. ‘Feel the fear and do it anyway’ is a saying from an American author Susan Jeffers, one I use often in my work. All of us at some time in our lives, experience fear to a degree. We need to face it head on. It won’t just go away. But the one thing no one should ever fear are facts and the truth. David had PC. Fact! We and the team dealt with it. All the nasties, all the downs and all the ups and we are still here thanks to medicine. I was afraid of the future. Afraid of how it might change us, individually and as a couple. But those fears were unfounded. If anything changed it was for the better if that was possible. We are closer than ever now and know we can survive whatever is thrown at us.
Only those guilty of doing wrong should be afraid of the truth or of being found out. So why was I so scared, or feeling hurt and sad? Association I think. Taking me back to earlier in my life when this was how it was. Me being hurt by those who should have loved me. Sounds pathetic but as a child it is very real. I was back there, little Carol Ann was evident, as happens when we are hurt or afraid. After the comments and emails from my eldest daughter, I began to go down, thinking of the trouble she was trying to cause. David said he was worried for me. All the nastiness of the past few years by ‘family’ had made me ill and he said I was going that way again. This was unforgivable as it should have been a time for celebration but I was becoming obsessed with all the hurt being dealt me. He said it was affecting ‘us’ and I hadn’t realised. I won’t let anyone or anything do that. So I gave myself a talking to, pulled myself up, as they say and will now focus on ‘today’.
I need to get back to work and that is now in place. Seeing clients is something I love, helping people out of anxiety, depression etc. is something I know I can do. The past years, including being affected by PC, my self-confidence went down as far as it could go. Illness does that. Bullying does that. But no more. All of these things did their best to break me and failed. It is up to me to make sure the cracks are sealed and that nothing negative can get into my life anymore. I thought I was there, last week, when I wrote my blog but I was wrong.
Today my beloved husband came in from the garden and said, ‘No pad!’ pointing to his nether regions. ‘No pad since yesterday evening!’ How good is that! We hugged and laughed and that is what this part of my Journey should be all about. Those of you who have been here, at this stage, know how good that was. We have always used humour, always laughed at ourselves, our way of coping I suppose. Throughout our 32 years together, we have laughed things better and are still doing this now, during the cancer and now with David and his recovery. It should be about sharing, having fun and loving. It will be. We have put back downsizing, I realise that it wasn’t this house that has made me so unhappy it was cancer and outside forces barging their way in. We have renovated our home and David, almost single-handed, since his operation in February, has designed and fitted a wonderful new kitchen. I need to appreciate this and enjoy living here again.
Sometimes you have to close the door on things you cannot change. Close out the bad times in order to enjoy the good. Now and again, even though I thought the door was closed enough, it gets pushed open again and the pain and hurt is able to get in. So today I have decided to close it and lock it forever. Barricade it if necessary to prevent what is left of my life and that of my family here, who love me and whom I love, being contaminated by those who choose to do so. The bolts will be strong and re enforced. For someone who shut me out of her life and wants nothing to do with me, she keeps barging back in uninvited. My door was always open to her before this last time. No more.
One of the reason I haven’t worked is that cancer has stolen my self -confidence. It had been low after the previous few years for reasons I have told before but David having cancer meant that I felt inadequate, helpless, and unable to cope as well as I wanted. How could I possibly help others feeling like this. Last week I felt better than I had for a few years and began my re registration with my governing body, ready to recommence work.Then the comments, pushing me back to where I had been for a few years before, almost in danger of going back to zero. David stopped me. He reassured me, reminded me of how we, as a couple had survived everything and with his love and support I know we will be okay. It is me, me who had allowed myself to slip down again. But now I am back, work is happening and I am writing again. Back almost to my normal. I have taken back control. I need to concentrate on the things I can do, the things and people I love, my work and my writing. It’s time.
My memories of the past, my children, my grandchildren, will be selective, the happy times, those remembered with love and happiness. No more nasty and no more hidden from view. No one will tell me what I can and can’t post. These are my memories, in a way, my very own Memory Box, like those made for each of my children. It is the good times we share on social media, these memories were some of my good times. The others are still to come. It doesn’t matter what is said about my life, no one can change the facts. The truth. It is my life, my past and I am proud, that against all odds I have become a strong woman .The woman I have always worked so hard to become.
As the picture above says, this is my life and my story. So I will choose the next chapter. It will be happy. As an author it is already in edit mode. As a woman it has already begun. As a wife it will be a bestseller. As for the truth, it will be in every word.
Thank you for reading x.
carolannwright 