4 years ago today, a 35-year-old version of me, with beautiful long hair and all the energy in the world, sat in a room and listened as a friendly surgeon and a kind nurse told her she had breast cancer. A cancerous lump. A small, treatable, lump.
That 4 years ago version of me sat naively, telling herself, that she’d do what the Drs said, to have her treatment and get on with her life. That version of me heard the news she had cancer and went out that very same night for dinner with her friends, she made videos, she drank cocktails and pretended nothing was wrong.
Then she had the worst 9 months of her life so far, with a lumpectomy, and IVF, and chemo and radiotherapy, and thought it was done.
She didn’t for one second believe she’d still, every 3 weeks, be visiting that wonderful nurse she’d met in that room all those years ago. That today she’d be having her 67th treatment. That the cancer would have gone, and then, less than a year later, returned. Incurable. That it would be an all-consuming beast in her life.
I miss that version of me. The one who looked on the bright side because she hadn’t learnt to think the worst. Who had full eyebrows and a perfect balayage. Who lived adventure to adventure, not scan to scan.
And who hadn’t put everyone in her world through an incurable cancer diagnosis.
I guess what I’m trying to say is today is my cancerversary and fuck cancer. But also, thank fuck for the people who have helped keep me here – medical or not……..And also, never, ever, ever, take beautiful hair for granted!