Being Brave

I listened to a song this morning which, besides making me cry, caused me to reflect on my cancer journey.  I was one of the lucky ones.  My cancers were caught relatively early.  All I needed was surgery to remove the problem.  But what about those who need more than surgery?  What fear do they experience?  Cancer is such a nasty word.
I have been told it three times in my life so far.  December 2003, September 2006 and December 2010.  The moment you get told that word the fear you feel is incredible.  Overwhelming.  People try and comfort you but their words don't dissipate the fear.
Cancer is scary.
People tell you that you are so brave and you think, "Do I have a choice?"
I didn't choose cancer.  For whatever reason cancer chose me.
And you fight it with everything you have got.  You take on that fear and overcome it.  You do it because you are not ready to die.  You do it because you want to live.  You don't have a choice.  Fighting cancer is like an innate reflex action.  After the initial shock your mind just goes into survival mode.  Fighting cancer is all about survival.  For those not suffering from cancer it might seem like you are brave.  If being brave means pushing back your fear and fighting to survive, then I guess we are brave.
But at the time you don't feel particularly brave.  You feel terrified.
And sometimes being brave is not enough.  No matter the fight you put up, the cancer forces advance and slowly take control of your body, reducing you to a diseased shell.  There is no dignity when this happens.  Dying has no dignity.  It is the end.
Everybody who gets a cancer diagnosis fights it. We all believe we can beat it.  But it is a luck of the draw kind of thing.  For some the belief you can beat it is not enough.  And you never know until you get the all-clear if that lucky person who beats it is you.
Cancer is scary.
Early detection is your best hope of beating it.
Bravery is instinctive.
http://blog.thebreastcancersite.com/trulybrave/#sxZdbqLeupv55E4v.01

Un-Valentine's Day

Not feeling the love.
Not wanting the love.
Not needing the love.
Valentine's day is all about love.  The love you have for your current partner, an intimate kind of love.  The love where you want to share your very being with someone else.  Valentine's Day is not about the lasting love you have for your children, family, friends, pets.  The love you feel for your city when the plane touches down and you see Table Mountain before you.  That love is not celebrated.  Instead we give cards and gifts to lovers who slip in and out of our lives.  Fleeting moments we try desperately to hang onto.
I have never been lucky in that intimate kind of love.  Bad choices, never choosing someone who is good for me.  I accept all the blame for that.  Loving someone so much that you lose yourself and who you are is not love.  My grandmother always used to say that you can't be loved until you love yourself.  When you forget who you are and try to be someone you're not then you are not loving yourself.
My last relationship was the final straw for me.  It made me realize that I am not relationship material.  I let the other person become all-consuming so that I forgot who I was.  That is not good.  I'm not sure if it was that final relationship and final betrayal which killed that ability to love another intimately or if it was the scalpel which cut out the cancer which cut that kind of love out of me, but I just know that I don't feel it anymore.  I don't even miss it or long for it.  That part of me has gone.  Dead and dried up.
But this isn't sad, it's good.  It means that now I focus on me and my children.
Cindy Vine is the author of Survival Tips for the Suddenly Single and Fear, Phobias and Frozen Feet - both are available on Amazon in kindle and print format.

Breast Cancer again!

The first time they told me I had breast cancer was on the 24th December 2003.  It had come as such a complete shock that it devastated me.  I'd had a blocked duct removed two weeks earlier and I can still remember the breast surgeon saying, "Well at least you know its not cancer."  How wrong he was.  Christmas and New Year was spent in deep depression as I thought I was going to die.  My gran had died from cancer, so for me cancer equated with death.  My operation was set for the 19th January 2004, and after the op I had so many complications, resulting in me suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.  Although I survived the whole unfortunate and unpleasant business, it was not something I would ever have liked to go through again.
In September I had a strong gut feeling.  I didn't have a lump or anything nothing to merit my concern, but I just new that there was something wrong with my so-called healthy breast.  I tried to find out about getting a mammogram done in Moshi, Tanzania where I live.  The hospital down the road had a mammogram machine, but nobody who knew how to work the machine or read the films.  In Arusha, 90km away, they had someone to work the macxhine but their machine was broken.  During the October break I traveled to Nairobi to have a mammogram at Nairobi Hospital.  Unfortunately, they lost the films somewhere between the hospital and the doctor.  Obviously, there was nowhere in East Africa I could go to with any confidence.
Searching online for a breast specialist in Cape Town, South Africa, I stumbled upon Prof. Affelstaedt, whom I always refer to as Prof Apfelschnapps.  The mammogram and ultrasound both showed a suspect area in the spray of calcifications they'd picked up in China in 2008.  The good Prof immediately performed two fine needle aspirations.  The results were inconclusive.  The Prof suggested a core biopsy.
Having had a miserable festive season seven years earlier with the spectre of cancer looming over my head, I wanted to avoid having to go through that again, so I told the doctor that I'd have the core biopsy after the festive season.  I think I just knew what they would find.  The first results came back and they were only 70% sure.  The pathologist had to stain the cells and then the results came back.  100%!  Even though I'd been expecting it, even though I'd gone through it all once befiore, it was still a shock.  My mom saw I was upset so took me shopping.  The cure for all woes in her book.  At first I handled the news that I'd need another mastectomy quite well.  They can't do another tram-flap reconstruction, as they'd already used my stomach muscle the first time.  This time, I'll be having an implant.  As the time looms closer for the surgery, I can feel myself becoming more anxious.  The Prof suspects that I carry the cancer gene as bilateral breast cancer in a woman under the age of fifty is not common.
Last time I went through it in a strange country with only my children for support.  This time, I'll be surrounded by family and friends.  Even though I know it won't be as bad as the first time, I still feel scared.  I can feel myself disassociating as a way to cope.  Like part of me is here going through the motions, but my spirit has gone to some zone to hang out until this is over.  Like I'm an observer watching what is going on but I am no longer a part of it.  I guess, that's just how I cope.
Cindy
                                                                  

Woo hoo Cape Town!

After a hectic sports weekend with swimming gala and kiddie triathlon, last Monday saw us up at 3am to leave at 4am to get to the airport for our three flights to Cape Town.  Kilimanjaro to Nairobi, only a 45 minute flight and we saw amazing views of Mount Kilimanjaro rising above the clouds.  It really is a very very big mountain.  At Nairobi we boarded our flight at the stated time, ready for the next leg to Johannesburg.  Unfortunately, they had a problem with the air traffic controllers, so we had to wait on the runway in a queue for an hour and a half.  Luckily, the plane wasn't full so I could stretch out next to me and sleep for the period we were delayed.  Unfortunately, that meant that we were an hour and a half late getting into Johannesburg, so instead of grabbing a quick lunch at the airport Spur Steakhouse, we had 20 minutes to run from the International Arrival terminal to the Domestic Arrival Terminal.  Everybody said we wouldn't make it, but we did, arriving huffing and puffing, stinking with sweat, ready to board.  Of course, there was no way that they could remove our luggage from Air Kenya and load it onto Comair in 20 minutes, so we arrived in Cape Town without our luggage.  This is getting to be a bit of a habit for us.  My Mom took us shopping for clothes until our luggage arrived, so that was a bonus.  It did arrive the next day, we collected it and hired a car, a little KIA with enough boot space to hide a mouse and that's all.
Wednesday I saw the breast specialist and he found a problem with my 'healthy' left breast.  Two fine needle biopsies later, two mammograms, several ultrasounds and the results were still worringly inconclusive.  Seven years ago almost to the day, I went through all of this with the right breast, ending up with a diagnosis of two kinds of cancer and a tramflap mastectomy.  I'm not sure I can mentally and emotionally go through all of that again.  I do feel like hitting well-meaning people who tell me I'm strong and can handle it, when they weren't there the first time and never witnessed what it was like, and never experienced it themselves.  I've decided to wait until after Christmas for the core biopsy they want to do, where they remove some of the tissue.  With friends visiting, I don't want to ruin Christmas.

Yesterday, we explored the Cape Peninsula, and although I took them along Chapman's Peak because I know the scenery is stunning, I couldn't look at it myself.  For some reason, Chapman's Peak terrifies me, I keep feeling as if I'm going to drive over the edge.  It might be something to do with my fear of heights

Shopping, sight-seeing, splashing in the waves.  This is the life.  Until the money runs out. 
Sunday we had one of those eaarly family Christmas lunches, the ones you do when you have step-siblings.  Two families, you only can spend Christmas day with one of them.  It is hard.
Off to explore the wine route today!  Hic!
love
Cindy