Apparently today is “World Cancer Day”…a day when the whole world silently – or in some cases loudly – acknowledges all Cancers…the impact of cancer….we think of the people fighting it….and those already…. taken.
I have spent a month sort of intentionally avoiding Cancer & Melanoma….not because I was in a bad place with Melanoma….sort of the opposite really….more that there have been many other things which have been very draining and mentally consuming. I have tried to sort of switch a mental switch off….like a dimmer switch….if it (Melanoma) isn’t there in full colour in my face I don’t need to think about it….make sense? I thought I could dial it down…..dilute the thought of Melanoma …let it fade into the background….and for a while it worked remarkably well.
I am different because of cancer….my perspective is different…how I view just about everything is different.
With some things I am more forgiving…laid back….accepting and embracing a “Ce la vie” attitude…..yet with other things I am much less tolerant. Things I would previously have “put up with” become deal breakers….I don’t know if it is so much “my way or the highway” as much as it is a desperate need for perfection.
Let me try to explain my logic here without a sudden rush of friends and family sending out men in white coats to escort me quietly away…
Before….. life was basically black & white with a smidge of grey in the mix…things that were neither brilliant or totally rubbish fell into the indifferent grey zone…which inevitably became larger than either the black or the white – let’s face it that is how most people stumble through life – we accept so much we “can’t change” that the lines between good and bad get blurred….the greyscale.
Whereas since Melanoma….since the bombshell day (Tuesday 11th June 2013 at 11.15am) and in particular since realising, and sadly accepting, that this is how it is – this rollercoaster ride is one that I have to be on….I can’t get off….since then I am all about the change.
It isn’t always nice to make changes.
It isn’t always easy.
The changed me…the new me…..lives in a world where for now at least there will be no greyscale…The Mr recently had strips torn off him (figuratively) because I didn’t like the way he dealt with an issue…..not because he was wrong or right….but because I would have done it differently…..and I saw red. I have this niggle in my mind. I need to know that the framework is in place. I need to know that if the monster does get me……that the Little people know me….understand what I believe….not just that I love to cuddle them & be cuddled back…not just that they make my world spin…not just that when I see it snowing outside at 6.30am I hop about outside their bedroom doors desperate to wake them because every moment is fun & exciting and I want to capture and share it all….
…not just the good bits….I want them to understand my take on the bigots, racists, sexists and bullies……I want them to know how to forgive….I want perfection for them…I know I can’t wrap them in bubblewrap and make the world perfect for them…but can I prepare them for what life will bring without taking anything away from now??
I remember seeing some image a long time ago where a colour was given to a person’s aura…. at the time it was all a bit Arty-Farty…but Cancer gives you a very different mind frame…..When you lie on a table injected with radioactive dye and the dye shows up blue and you watch it move around your body….entranced by the patterns but knowing all the time the pattern of colour will change your life for ever you realise that the “aura” stuff isn’t such a bad life guide after all.
I don’t want to be black & white & grey…I want a rainbow….I want the rest of my life to be colourful and vibrant …I fully intend to be here to watch the Little People reach the milestones of life I now hold as beacons of light in my mind…..but I have seen so many lights go out and I know how fragile life can be.
The Cancer I have is a cruel monster with no cure.
No it isn’t black and white….there isn’t a “certainty” that it will be Melanoma that gets me….it could just as easily be that when I do that Solo skydive I am thinking of doing that the parachute doesn’t open and….you see my point….there is the greyscale…the uncertainty.
There is a 70% chance of my Melanoma returning and a 50% chance I will survive 5 years.
I live with the knowledge of that. The knowledge that everything about me is now different….because every single decision I make in my life & for those around me is altered based upon Cancer and what it has brought into my life…the unwelcome member of our family.
The Little People amused us greatly last week when they called me “Fiesty”. I guess I am sometimes….fiesty….a perfectionist….still a bit confused about how to find my way on this new path infront of me…..I am not sure what more Cancer has in store for me….but I am absolutely definitely, resoundingly certain that Cancer will make my life less grey.