Letting it All Out

I found myself in an uncontrollable heap on the kitchen floor, crying out loud, big tears rolling down my face.

 I recall two other occasions during the past 12 months when I have reacted in the same way. The first time was the day I came home from hospital having had the core biopsies, I dissolved into a heap on the tarmac outside the house and I screamed so loud I am sure the whole of the Shire heard me. The second time was three weeks after surgery when I found myself alone at home having to pick up the pieces and dea with what had just happened to me. And there was yesterday. With Angelina’s double mastectomy, her fabulous new breasts (her own nipples intact!) and virtually no chance of getting BC, and BRCA all over the media at every hour. Every charity flagging up the event, interviews with cancer survivors, statistics being hurled about, 2 out of 3 of us survive for 20 years (a third of us don’t?) You’re at a much greater risk of BC if you are over 50, smoke, drink, are obese etc, should have ruled me out then?

Then I get the letter from the hospital wanting to treat my adverse endometrium issues that could turn cancerous during the five years of Tamoxifen, by giving me hormone treatment that could cause a recurrence of breast cancer. Not much of a choice as I see it? Breast cancer or endometrium cancer?

Following my signing up for the Race For Life, I received marketing information yesterday with my name all over it “Lulu, together we can fight cancer”. “ Lulu, women like you can make a difference” It’s the fighting that is so wearing and I don’t like to look at it as a battle. The opening line of one of my poems is “I’m not brave and I’m not a soldier”.

And so emotions had been running high all week, I had a false sense of security as I thought I wasn’t going to get my period and everything would just sort itself out naturally, and when it did come it seemed much lighter, that was until day two, yesterday, when I woke up and had to change all the bed linen and myself. Having put the linen in the machine, I gave up, dissolved, cried, let it all out, wished for my breast back and to have never had the cancer and to not be having to take drugs for the next four and half years, for a better NHS and GP’s that know what they are doing and who really care, and for a system that works and doesn’t let us all down.

And so today is a new day and I feel much better having got it all out of my system and having told you all about it!