Makes You Stronger

NB to the post surgery blog update "A New Normal"

A number of people were moved by the above post after my surgery. It was never going to be an easy post to write and it was always going to be full of emotions after the few days in hospital and the waiting time since diagnosis a month earlier. My blog is honest and written more or less as it happens and how it feels. Different people and different personalities will interpret my words in their own way. One friend said she was smiling, crying and dancing with me. I was warmed by her words.

I did not identify with the significance of choosing “A Single man” (Abel Korzeniowski) to listen to in the bath! There was no link between the album title and my mood at the time! It was not intended to be morbid! Simply one of my favourite classical music albums that I have regularly listened to over the past couple of years and one of my favourite movies that I have watched many times. Yes, emotional, powerful music, but music that I often escape to and enjoy.

 Wednesday. A week since I went into hospital.

It feels like it was just a couple of days ago that I was going into hospital. How quickly the week has passed, much of it in a blur (good to have the blog as a point of reference). I have been resting at home and “taking it easy”. The post-surgery booklet contains strict instructions for aftercare of myself and the wound and also the precautions to put in place and to continue with to prevent lymphedema  which is quite a high risk following mastectomy and lymph node biopsy. It could possibly occur now or at any time in the future. It may be triggered by insect bites, sunlight, deodorants, shaving, gardening without gloves,lifting etc. No heavy lifting at any point in the future. So I guess you won’t see me in Rio in the weight lifting, but maybe hope for the marathon? My physio is improving movement and strengthening  my arm and shoulder daily. I have a very large area of numbness around the back of my shoulder and back of my arm as well as under the site of surgery. Some of the feeling may return over time.

 Of course always well meaning, but I am beginning to dislike the word “positive”. Stay positive, be positive. I have heard the words hundreds of times over recent weeks! Let’s face it, the results of the biopsy were positive, and look where that got me! Yes, of course it’s much better to treat this a “bump on the road” rather than some giant mountain to climb, and to laugh instead of cry but in all honesty there are times when it has felt like a big mountain, especially in the times of waiting for results, and times when it is not possible to laugh and the tears flow. By nature, I rise to a challenge and I do not give in easily. I rather not to think of this challenge as a war, some battle that I have to win. My energy levels are not high enough for me to fight at such a level. Are the soldiers that die any less a person, were they not strong enough or positive enough? No, of course not.

I am realistic. We none of us know what is round the corner and life throws stuff at all of us. In general day to day living it is often difficult to be positive and we all at times, let things get on top of us. There are always ups and downs in all our lives. Granted, I have probably had more than my fair share over the last six years, but they have only served to make me stronger. As Kelly Clarkson sings, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, stand a little taller, work a little harder…” I don’t think about myself being “positive” it’s a high bench mark to strive for continuously and I do not like failure! What I am, is focused, cheerful, optimistic and strong and I am moving forward daily.

 Yes, the cancer has taken away my breast, but not my personality or who I am. By all accounts  I am exactly the same. But there is no getting away from the fact that when I undress, my body does not look or feel how it has for the past 48 years. I have a new body image. A long flat scar where the curve of my breast was just last week. An imbalance in the symmetry in the mirror and a lack of skin sensations. A new vision that I will get used to, one that depicts the journey I am going through, that marks this “blip” in my life. A physical change that will always be with me. A change that was essential to saving my life.