I Lost Someone I Loved to Cancer
I think its safe to say no one in my imediate family likes 'cancer'.
When I was very young (before I can really remember anything), who would hav ebeen my older Brother, aged 10 at the time, died of childhood leukemia. His death affected our family, my Mother fand Father, an aweful lot, and to an extent me also, even though I never got to know him. I guess for me, its the heartache, of losing someone so close, my own Brother, made in some strange way even worse, by the fact I never knew him, as I was so young, just a baby, myself, at the time.
Then, when I was aged 14 years old (in 1990) my gorgeous, beautiful Mother died.
This time I was very much old enough to know what was happening. I saw my beautiful Mother, get weaker, and weaker, turn from the Mother who did everything in the household, looking after the house, and running it, whilst also having part time jobs, have to give up all that. She gradually got weaker and weaker, as the breast cancer took hold of her body, her gorgeous dark brown hair vanished. I think we all knew she was dieing, treatment wasn't working.
Then one day, I got home from school, and my Father told me to go up to my parents room, where my Mother was in bed.
An oxygen tank besides the bed, and IV morphine line running into her arm, and just a shadow of how my beautiful Mother had been. I sat there a long while, holding her hand, my Father was there too. And she died. Just like that. Cancer had stolen her from me.
It was some years later before cancer touched me again. This time, I was 38 years old, my ex-boyfriend, who I had remained very good friends with, had melanoma, skin cancer, had been going through treatments for about two years, and then, it had spread, to other parts of his body.
Sadly he died when I was out of the country, but I went to his funeral in September 2014.
Cancer wasn't, (and most likely probably still isn't), done with me.
That was September 2014.
By November 2014 I discovered a lump in my armpit and saw my GP. by the end of the year I was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma.
Treatment began in 2015, and by the end of August 2015, I'd finished chemotherapy and radiotherapy, and, luckily, was in complete remission.
To the best of my knowledge I'm still in remission now.
Left with the consequences of the treatment side effects. The possibility longter I may lose the use of my left arm, all manner of hormonal inbalances, which may or may not be treatment related, an aortic aneurysm, that may be due to radiotherapy, an increased risk of several other cancers now, including lung and elswehre. Nerve dammage in my feet, hands, arms and legs, which means I can't feel quite correctly. Still have fatigue caused by teh chemotherapy, and memory problems too. So perhaps the cancer didn't beat me, this time, but its given me one heck of a beating, with all the side effects imagineable from just the treatment of the cancer.
I know if I don't die first of something else, it'll be relapse of the cancer that kills me; I've already been told due to my reaction to the chemotherapy drugs, I won't be eligable for more chemotherapy if it does return, but would have to have a stem cell transplant.
The only beautiful thing I got through my cancer, was, at one point, during chemotherapy, feeling so ill, feeling so weak, I recall sitting on the edge of my bed, too weak to stand whilst I dried my remaining hair with the hairdryer, and suddenly, into my head, sprang such a vivid, 'real' vision of my Mother, herself in early stages of cancer treatment, in virtually the identicle pose, drying her gorgeous hair (before she lost it).
I think that was probably the first time ever I was able to have a real feeling, and the knowledge, of the pain, and horror my Mother must have had during her chemotherapy treatments. I think that was probably the first time I really cried over my Mothers death, some 20 years or more after she had died.
When I was very young (before I can really remember anything), who would hav ebeen my older Brother, aged 10 at the time, died of childhood leukemia. His death affected our family, my Mother fand Father, an aweful lot, and to an extent me also, even though I never got to know him. I guess for me, its the heartache, of losing someone so close, my own Brother, made in some strange way even worse, by the fact I never knew him, as I was so young, just a baby, myself, at the time.
Then, when I was aged 14 years old (in 1990) my gorgeous, beautiful Mother died.
This time I was very much old enough to know what was happening. I saw my beautiful Mother, get weaker, and weaker, turn from the Mother who did everything in the household, looking after the house, and running it, whilst also having part time jobs, have to give up all that. She gradually got weaker and weaker, as the breast cancer took hold of her body, her gorgeous dark brown hair vanished. I think we all knew she was dieing, treatment wasn't working.
Then one day, I got home from school, and my Father told me to go up to my parents room, where my Mother was in bed.
An oxygen tank besides the bed, and IV morphine line running into her arm, and just a shadow of how my beautiful Mother had been. I sat there a long while, holding her hand, my Father was there too. And she died. Just like that. Cancer had stolen her from me.
It was some years later before cancer touched me again. This time, I was 38 years old, my ex-boyfriend, who I had remained very good friends with, had melanoma, skin cancer, had been going through treatments for about two years, and then, it had spread, to other parts of his body.
Sadly he died when I was out of the country, but I went to his funeral in September 2014.
Cancer wasn't, (and most likely probably still isn't), done with me.
That was September 2014.
By November 2014 I discovered a lump in my armpit and saw my GP. by the end of the year I was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma.
Treatment began in 2015, and by the end of August 2015, I'd finished chemotherapy and radiotherapy, and, luckily, was in complete remission.
To the best of my knowledge I'm still in remission now.
Left with the consequences of the treatment side effects. The possibility longter I may lose the use of my left arm, all manner of hormonal inbalances, which may or may not be treatment related, an aortic aneurysm, that may be due to radiotherapy, an increased risk of several other cancers now, including lung and elswehre. Nerve dammage in my feet, hands, arms and legs, which means I can't feel quite correctly. Still have fatigue caused by teh chemotherapy, and memory problems too. So perhaps the cancer didn't beat me, this time, but its given me one heck of a beating, with all the side effects imagineable from just the treatment of the cancer.
I know if I don't die first of something else, it'll be relapse of the cancer that kills me; I've already been told due to my reaction to the chemotherapy drugs, I won't be eligable for more chemotherapy if it does return, but would have to have a stem cell transplant.
The only beautiful thing I got through my cancer, was, at one point, during chemotherapy, feeling so ill, feeling so weak, I recall sitting on the edge of my bed, too weak to stand whilst I dried my remaining hair with the hairdryer, and suddenly, into my head, sprang such a vivid, 'real' vision of my Mother, herself in early stages of cancer treatment, in virtually the identicle pose, drying her gorgeous hair (before she lost it).
I think that was probably the first time ever I was able to have a real feeling, and the knowledge, of the pain, and horror my Mother must have had during her chemotherapy treatments. I think that was probably the first time I really cried over my Mothers death, some 20 years or more after she had died.
46-50, T
