I'm always gonna wanna make it move
Always gonna be an uphill battle
Sometimes I'm gonna have to lose
Ain't about how fast I get there
Ain't about what's waiting on the other side
It's the climb" - Miley Cyrus
At the age of 25, I am being brought face-to-face with my first major mountain to climb. At 25, I have been diagnosed with Stage 4 Bowel Cancer which has spread to my liver and I am facing a massive uphill battle with no certainty that I will win.
"I'm sorry but you have cancer".
You never expect to hear those words. You never expect that it will happen to you. And you never expect to have your entire life crumble down around you... One minute your living your life, the next your being told that your entire world is about to change and you have some big decisions to make.
It's been just over a month since I was first diagnosed and my life has already drastically changed. I packed up my entire life in Wellington and moved home to little old Paeroa, I left my job, my amazing work friends and my ever supportive friends who have become my family. I've had more blood tests than ever before, an ultrasound and CT scans, a surgery to save my bowel, met with doctor after doctor, nurses and more nurses, heard more medical jargon than I could ever begin to understand, and had a room full of medical professionals that I have never met, decide what they think is best for me without my own input or opinion. These medical professionals decided that chemotherapy is the best option right now and yesterday I started my first round of chemotherapy.
I watched as my mother was told that she may loose her daughter and then watched in absolute awe as she held herself together to make sure she was doing everything possible to get me home and get me healthy. I watched as she made phone call after phone call to tell my family the news, and as she helped me pack me life up all the while holding herself together to protect me. She put all her emotions and feelings aside and still pushes everything aside to make sure she's doing everything she can for me and every day she amazes me even more. My family and friends have been absolute superstars, so supportive and I'm just so lucky to have the most amazing people in my life, who would do anything for me.
It's been a month of struggle. I have struggled with who I should tell, how to tell them, whether they will be able to cope and whether I will be treated differently. I struggled with the initial C-bomb, the doctor's decision to insert a colostomy bag to save my bowel, the decision to move home to Paeroa, with whether I'll be able to have children, but mostly I have struggled with how to accept being 25 and being diagnosed with life-threatening cancer.
I suppose this blog is a way to help me accept these changes and to have a safe place to put my thoughts and feelings without feeling like I might hurt or offend anyone. And maybe its also a way to tell people about these changes without the feeling of having people pity me or feel sorry for me. I don't want to be pitied and I don't want people to feel sorry for me. I've come to realise that one of the most important things that I need as a cancer patient, is to be treated as normal. I'm just me, with a little something extra on the side now...
Each blog post will be titled with a song title, as it can help describe how I'm feeling. Currently, I'm facing a massive climb, it doesn't matter how fast I'll get to the other-side and it doesn't matter what's on the other side of that mountain.
What matters is I'm willing to fight and face The Climb.
