10 years ago today, on Tuesday 15th November, I was diagnosed with
Hodgkins Disease aged 17 and a half. It's still something I struggle to
talk about with other people - this is an experiment in talking about
it to myself, but by publishing it here I am technically talking to
someone else. Baby steps! I started writing this back in May and back
then I wasn't sure I would publish it. I'm still not quite sure about my
decision today, to ruminate on a time long gone, especially when the
world is hurting in the wake of so many senseless attacks. But if
someone, anyone, reads this and identifies or takes comfort from it in
any way, it will be worth pressing that publish button.
Dear
Danie, or are you still spelling it with a y to be different? You'll go
back to your roots in a couple of years, keeping it short and sweet,
just Dani.
That sentence alone must be such a relief
for you. Yes, you will still be around in a couple of years. Yes, even
ten years from now, writing this post, reflecting on a decade you
weren't entirely sure you'd live through.
It's ten
years to the day today, another November day. It's been a horrible
Tuesday, hasn't it? Although horrible doesn't quite cut it. Ten years on
it's still as clear as it was the day it happened- the scans, the
waiting for the results, the raindrops on the windscreen... unsettled,
almost-knowing, the thought hovering at the edge of your consciousness.
The shock-without-the-shock. The diagnosis you expected but didn't quite
believe would happen. The dread of what was to come. The horror as you
consider the percentage of people who don't survive.
Shall
we linger there? I try not to. You'll never quite shake it, I'm afraid.
But I have a few things to applaud you for, so let's move on to more
positive notes.
A WWII slogan will find resurging
popularity in the years that follow, but you're just a few years too
early for the trend that is Keep Calm and Carry On - but that's exactly
what you did. You did
so well. So bloody well. I look back now
and don't know where you found the strength to keep attending school, to
drag yourself out of bed each morning and carry on as normal, as though
your life hadn't been shaken to the core. The resolve to smile at your
parents when they're collapsing in tears, too afraid to speak their
fears aloud. The levelheadedness to just grin at your German teacher
when she mistakes your wig for your real hair. The audacity to apologise
to your maths teacher for failing a test and not go to pieces when he
tentatively smiles and says he'll award extra points for effort. The
jokes you crack whilst in the ward, making your mum snigger behind the
nurses' backs. What an effort. Even today when people bring it up,
you'll act like it was nothing, like it was easy. It wasn't and deep
down you know it, but if you take a second to contemplate what it's
costing you right now and in the months to come, you'll lose momentum.
Oh
I'm sorry, I wish I could have stopped it - but you do lose momentum,
but not until it's over, when the treatment has ended, when you've
stopped your daily dose of radiation and the baby hair starts to creep
back on your scalp. You did so well, for so long, that no one begrudges
you when you start locking yourself in the bathroom to cry, and refuse
to leave the house for months. It's going to happen, I can't lie, but
know this - your mum physically pulls you out of it. Paris is always a
good idea, and never more so than when you need to get yourself back on
track.
You block so much out for a long time, just to
return to normality. You act as though it was a mere blip on the surface
of your life, when really it took everything you held deep inside and
did its best to destroy it. You repeatedly act as though you're
invincible in the hope that this repetition will make it come true. You
insist, furiously, that you're perfectly fine, over and over again.
I
think you can tell from the fact I'm writing this, exactly ten years
on, that it isn't true. That you weren't fine then and, on bad days,
you're not fine now. That the fear will never truly leave you, that
doctors and hospitals still fill you with paralysing terror. Certain
smells will still induce a long-buried sense of panic, will still be
able to stop you in your tracks. It is not all-consuming. I have days
when I forget, even. When those hospital corridors and foil packets and
cardboard receptacles seem like part of a life lived by someone else.
But I'm addressing you now to tell you this - it doesn't break you. It's
a part of you. Just like the football matches and the emo eyeliner and
everything else that shaped your teenage years, the cancer is a part of
your Bildungsroman. Without it, for better or for worse, I would not be
me today if you had not fought like you did.
I've not
talked about you enough in these ten years. I've tried to keep you
buried, tried to move on, tried to ignore you. I'm so sorry. You never
deserved that. And I feel that you would be so disappointed if you knew
you would spend ten years demeaning every effort you made, brushing it
off, reducing the value of your struggle with every day that passes
after you're given the all clear. Six years ago I tried to write about
the memories and for once they flowed, in a frantic 3am rush, fingers
scrabbling at the keyboard, emptying a host of details into my laptop.
And then I handed it in as part of my coursework. I should have been
proud. I'd made an effort to confront the demon I kept hidden away. My
course leader was impressed, made me read a paragraph aloud to the class
- instead of being met by silence, people were nodding and one girl
even caught my eye across the room and mouthed "me too.". But it felt
hollow. It felt like I'd exploited you, and your feelings and your pain -
instead of displaying your strength and determination, I'd focused on
the unpleasant things, the hospital smells, the sickness, the weakness.
You never deserved that.
So today, ten years on, I'm
writing to you to make you a promise. I'm not going to hide you any
more, I'm not going to keep you buried. I'm not going to hide the few
photographs you allowed people to take. I'm going to applaud your
strength -
my strength - and be proud of what you - of what
I - achieved all those years ago. You were brilliant.
I was brilliant. Everyone fighting cancer, everyone who has survived cancer, everyone stolen by cancer - we are
all brilliant.
Today, even though you are still struggling and this week in particular
has been taxing, today you feel very aware of how lucky you are. Today, you forced yourself to go for a walk, to enjoy your surroundings, instead of hiding under a blanket and waiting for the cloud to pass. Today,
ten years on, you'll sit in your living room and you will look at
photos of your lovely dog waiting for you at home - born, by some odd
coincidence, on this very day ten years ago - and you will look at how
far you have come and you will feel, as always, so very grateful that
you are still here.
 |
| Today / early 2006 / with my mum in Paris, June 2006 |
Thank you for reading my rambles - I've included a couple of links to charities below if you're experiencing similar things, if you want to read more, or donate to research.
Cancer Research
Macmillan
Teenage Cancer Trust
Luxembourg Fondation Cancer
