Lessons from a Survivor
I can't tell you how relieved I am to finally close (sorry SLAM) the door on this crazy chapter of my life. It has been a pretty tumultuous time to say the least and there are so many things I have learned and so many ways in which my perspective has changed.
Here are a few randoms lessons to take away whether you are someone with or without Cancer.
DEATH
After being diagnosed, naturally one of the first things that my mind jumped to was the possibility of death. Whilst this possibility is, in fact, there for each and every one of us, we tend to go about our business, ignoring this inevitable fact of life. After my diagnosis, for the first time this possibility became very real because my existence had become visibly threatened. Whilst I let this dark thought creep into my mind in the beginning, once I started my fight, the idea of death quickly disappeared.
I think the important thing to remember if ever diagnosed is to not to jump to that morbid conclusion. Cancer does NOT have to mean a death sentence. I had Stage 1 Cancer so what do I know right? Maybe because I have read a million survivor stories since my diagnosis and because I have some good friends who have also managed to kick cancer's ass. But really, there are sooooo many stories out there of people with late stage cancer who have defied the odds and conquered it!
POSITIVITY
HEALTH
Is it possible that diet contributed to my mutation, perhaps? Could it have been that one glass of Pinot Grigio, that one marlboro light, that one piece of crispy delicious bacon that finally tipped me over the edge and ignited that cancerous spark within me? Sadly I will never know.
My family have always been pretty healthy bar our love of shortbread and an ever flowing supply of vino. I went through a pretty unhealthy phase after school when I was using any funds on nights out drinking at Tiger Tiger rather than on organic health foods. And who could forget the infamous Heathrow injection of 2007 when I was working in a pub and eating fat chips for breakfast! Believe me, if I could tell 20 year old Jen to stop eating 2 minute noodles I would and if I could stop 27 year old Jen from seeing that pin on Pinterest about making cake in a mug in the microwave I WOULD.
It was maybe around the age of 24 or 25 that I became more concerned about exercise and healthy eating and this has improved with each passing year.
But I, like you, went around thinking I was invincible - drinking gallons of wine, enjoying a fag or 10, getting a little experimental in my 20s. Having my body compromised has really made me rethink my health and has made me even more conscious of what I put into my body.
This is something which I would really URGE you to also consider. If everyone could have chemo once in their lives I could guarantee you they would never smoke again. I would never wish what I have gone through on my worst enemy so everyone should just take care of themselves okay.
I am not here to preach. I still drink wine and eat ice cream and pizza and all those good things. But moderation is key and making sure you balance that scoop of ice cream with a healthy carrot and beetroot juice! Not at the same time of course! AND anything that is an obvious poison is best left alone.
MIND
Over the last few years I have been pretty mad about fitness - going to the gym, taking spinning and pilates classes as well as doing all sorts of work outs at home. Heck, I even ran the bleeding London Marathon. At the end of each week I would beat myself up for not working out enough and would work out goals for the following week.
For as long as I can remember I have harped on about how I think the physical and mental are intrinsically linked. Like the way I would catch a cold if I was stressed or a bit depressed. Despite subscribing to this philosophy, I have spent hours each week dedicated to keeping physically fit whilst I have, for the most part, ignored my mental wellbeing.
Yes exercise is good for the mind, releasing all those good endorphins and happy hormones but never have I really taken some quiet time away from the flashing lights and 90s rave music of the spinning studio to put the focus solely on my mind.
I think mindfulness is something that should be taught in school and something that should be taken as seriously as healthy eating and exercise. Even if it's taking 5 minutes a day to ground yourself and relax. I struggle a lot to quieten my mind so hop onto YouTube and listen to a guided meditation to help you out. HeadSpace is also a good app to download.
GRATITUDE
Facing a life threatening disease has a weird way of making you really appreciate life and the people around you. What I realised through my experience is that gratitude, like mindfulness, is something that needs to be practiced. I think we often take life for granted and perhaps you can only truly appreciate it when put in a life-threatening situation but I urge you to PRACTICE gratitude daily. Gratitude comes into a lot meditations that I listen to but seriously you just need 1 minute a day to mentally list everything that you are grateful for. EASY!
CAUSE
Do I know the cause of my cancer? No, not really. Every week I seem to come across new articles about the apparent causes of cancer. Everything from smoking, drinking, diet, the pill, stress, bacon, processed meat, red meat, sugar, white flour, cake, vegetable oil, carcinogens, GMOs, anything that isn't organic, plastic water bottles, bras, mobile phones, laptops, microwaves, sun beds, sunshine, shampoo, cleaning products, the sun....the list is pretty endless.
Basically I think it boils down to luck of the draw. By some unfortunate stroke of bad luck a gene mutated in my body and boom, I had cancer.
From everything I have read, watched, discussed, debated and learned I tend to believe the cause of my cancer was an amalgamation of bad luck, lifestyle influences, mental and spiritual neglect, stress, anxiety and manifested fears. This sounds a little out there but simply put it was issues from all spheres of my existence (physical, mental, spiritual, emotional) that ultimately came to a head.
Deep down I believe I was knocked out of alignment. I felt this happen slowly over the last few years and felt like I was continuously trying to keep my head above water. Well on the 2nd of February 2015 I drowned and can say that, at present, I am sitting happily on dry land.
DEALING WITH IT
I know I have mentioned at several intervals that this blog was my way of hopefully helping others who are going through this situation as well as keeping my friends around the world in the loop as to what was going on.
It has been all of those things but more than that, it was my way of processing each part of my diagnosis and treatment. It was pretty hard reliving each part of my journey but as I finished each blog I was able to lay each part to rest. Like most traumas, the details tend to become very blurry and it is likely that some parts are entirely blocked out, but I will always have this blog as reminder of what I went through, all that I accomplished and will serve as a reminder of how grateful I am to be alive and kicking.
Thank you to everyone for the outpouring of love and support and for listening to me complain for months on end. I really can't thank you enough.
So this is it from me for now. I am off to travel, to work, to explore, to take adventures, to run amok, to relax, to enjoy, to experience, to delight in the small things, to love and to live my life! Peace out home slices.
Here are a few randoms lessons to take away whether you are someone with or without Cancer.
DEATH
After being diagnosed, naturally one of the first things that my mind jumped to was the possibility of death. Whilst this possibility is, in fact, there for each and every one of us, we tend to go about our business, ignoring this inevitable fact of life. After my diagnosis, for the first time this possibility became very real because my existence had become visibly threatened. Whilst I let this dark thought creep into my mind in the beginning, once I started my fight, the idea of death quickly disappeared.
I think the important thing to remember if ever diagnosed is to not to jump to that morbid conclusion. Cancer does NOT have to mean a death sentence. I had Stage 1 Cancer so what do I know right? Maybe because I have read a million survivor stories since my diagnosis and because I have some good friends who have also managed to kick cancer's ass. But really, there are sooooo many stories out there of people with late stage cancer who have defied the odds and conquered it!
POSITIVITY
Whilst sitting in my surgeon's waiting room before one of my check ups I got chatting to the receptionists, one of whom is a breast cancer survivor. At this stage I had just finished chemo and had made it to the other side. They said how positive I had been and how wonderful it was that I had finished treatment.
As women that have seen thousands of cancer patients coming in and out of that waiting room, they really stressed how a positive attitude can really make all the difference to the point where it can be the deal breaker in a pretty life or death situation.
Now, not for a second was my experience all positivity, sunshine and rainbows. Believe me, there were a LOT of bad days - a LOT of grumpiness, frustration, anger, pain and sadness. A lot of which nobody saw but which my family and a few close friends can most certainly testify. But all through that negativity and those very dark days, I clung to the core positive belief that I would beat it.
Again I know I was only stage 1 so the odds were definitely in my favour but I think there is a LOT to said for having a positive attitude.
VANITY
This has been a pretty big theme in my journey and an area which I know has been a big interest to my readers as seen by my blog stats (yes we are all voyeuristic creeps!)
The prospect of losing my hair, eyelashes and eyebrows devastated me more than anything. Now, looking back, I can't understand why I made all that fuss. Yes, the process of physically losing my hair was disturbing and pretty heart-wrenching and the months of looking like a plucked chicken were definitely hard. But I got through them without a wig and with a trusty array of beanies and eyebrow shadow/pencil trickery. Did I feel like a bit of a beast, yes. Did it stop me from going in public and getting out and about (when I had the energy), no.
I know it is painful but I promise if you ever go through it you will realise it is only temporary and that your hair will come back! I am a few months post-chemo and have all my lashes and hair!
If anything, it has been a good learning curve for a girl slightly obsessed with her hair straightener. I wasn't too bothered with the pained glances from randoms and haven't cared too much about what people have thought. BUT try and take a photo of me and I will cut you! I am no saint okay, I have a few confidence issues that I am dealing with. But you would too if you had been through what I have been through so have some sensitivity and back off with that selfie stick!
RECURRENCE
This is something I have grappled with since finishing chemo and which a lot of survivors are abruptly confronted with after treatment. From the moment I was diagnosed I become hyper-aware of cancer stories that would crop up in books, movies, reality TV shows etc. What struck me were the terms 'two time' or 'three time cancer survivor' that kept popping up with an unsettling frequency. Do this all again?? You gotta be flipping KIDDING me.
I was so rooted in my cancer experience that I seldom thought too far in the future, rarely contemplating my return to work and to Australia and to the real world. As soon as treatment stopped I hit panic mode and began thinking of my life in terms of if the cancer were to come back in 3 to 5 years (as this is 'statistically' when my cancer should recur if it did). THIS IS SERIOUSLY MESSED UP.
With the help of my numerologist/spiritual guru and through a lot of internal reflection, I have worked through the root of these fears and intend on living my life like I am going to live till I am 100. I also intend on enjoying each day as it comes and working on living in the present as much as possible. And should the evil C-bomb rear its ugly head again, I will cross that bridge if I ever come to it.
As women that have seen thousands of cancer patients coming in and out of that waiting room, they really stressed how a positive attitude can really make all the difference to the point where it can be the deal breaker in a pretty life or death situation.
Now, not for a second was my experience all positivity, sunshine and rainbows. Believe me, there were a LOT of bad days - a LOT of grumpiness, frustration, anger, pain and sadness. A lot of which nobody saw but which my family and a few close friends can most certainly testify. But all through that negativity and those very dark days, I clung to the core positive belief that I would beat it.
Again I know I was only stage 1 so the odds were definitely in my favour but I think there is a LOT to said for having a positive attitude.
VANITY
This has been a pretty big theme in my journey and an area which I know has been a big interest to my readers as seen by my blog stats (yes we are all voyeuristic creeps!)
The prospect of losing my hair, eyelashes and eyebrows devastated me more than anything. Now, looking back, I can't understand why I made all that fuss. Yes, the process of physically losing my hair was disturbing and pretty heart-wrenching and the months of looking like a plucked chicken were definitely hard. But I got through them without a wig and with a trusty array of beanies and eyebrow shadow/pencil trickery. Did I feel like a bit of a beast, yes. Did it stop me from going in public and getting out and about (when I had the energy), no.
I know it is painful but I promise if you ever go through it you will realise it is only temporary and that your hair will come back! I am a few months post-chemo and have all my lashes and hair!
If anything, it has been a good learning curve for a girl slightly obsessed with her hair straightener. I wasn't too bothered with the pained glances from randoms and haven't cared too much about what people have thought. BUT try and take a photo of me and I will cut you! I am no saint okay, I have a few confidence issues that I am dealing with. But you would too if you had been through what I have been through so have some sensitivity and back off with that selfie stick!
RECURRENCE
This is something I have grappled with since finishing chemo and which a lot of survivors are abruptly confronted with after treatment. From the moment I was diagnosed I become hyper-aware of cancer stories that would crop up in books, movies, reality TV shows etc. What struck me were the terms 'two time' or 'three time cancer survivor' that kept popping up with an unsettling frequency. Do this all again?? You gotta be flipping KIDDING me.
I was so rooted in my cancer experience that I seldom thought too far in the future, rarely contemplating my return to work and to Australia and to the real world. As soon as treatment stopped I hit panic mode and began thinking of my life in terms of if the cancer were to come back in 3 to 5 years (as this is 'statistically' when my cancer should recur if it did). THIS IS SERIOUSLY MESSED UP.
With the help of my numerologist/spiritual guru and through a lot of internal reflection, I have worked through the root of these fears and intend on living my life like I am going to live till I am 100. I also intend on enjoying each day as it comes and working on living in the present as much as possible. And should the evil C-bomb rear its ugly head again, I will cross that bridge if I ever come to it.
HEALTH
Is it possible that diet contributed to my mutation, perhaps? Could it have been that one glass of Pinot Grigio, that one marlboro light, that one piece of crispy delicious bacon that finally tipped me over the edge and ignited that cancerous spark within me? Sadly I will never know.
My family have always been pretty healthy bar our love of shortbread and an ever flowing supply of vino. I went through a pretty unhealthy phase after school when I was using any funds on nights out drinking at Tiger Tiger rather than on organic health foods. And who could forget the infamous Heathrow injection of 2007 when I was working in a pub and eating fat chips for breakfast! Believe me, if I could tell 20 year old Jen to stop eating 2 minute noodles I would and if I could stop 27 year old Jen from seeing that pin on Pinterest about making cake in a mug in the microwave I WOULD.
It was maybe around the age of 24 or 25 that I became more concerned about exercise and healthy eating and this has improved with each passing year.
But I, like you, went around thinking I was invincible - drinking gallons of wine, enjoying a fag or 10, getting a little experimental in my 20s. Having my body compromised has really made me rethink my health and has made me even more conscious of what I put into my body.
This is something which I would really URGE you to also consider. If everyone could have chemo once in their lives I could guarantee you they would never smoke again. I would never wish what I have gone through on my worst enemy so everyone should just take care of themselves okay.
I am not here to preach. I still drink wine and eat ice cream and pizza and all those good things. But moderation is key and making sure you balance that scoop of ice cream with a healthy carrot and beetroot juice! Not at the same time of course! AND anything that is an obvious poison is best left alone.
MIND
Over the last few years I have been pretty mad about fitness - going to the gym, taking spinning and pilates classes as well as doing all sorts of work outs at home. Heck, I even ran the bleeding London Marathon. At the end of each week I would beat myself up for not working out enough and would work out goals for the following week.
For as long as I can remember I have harped on about how I think the physical and mental are intrinsically linked. Like the way I would catch a cold if I was stressed or a bit depressed. Despite subscribing to this philosophy, I have spent hours each week dedicated to keeping physically fit whilst I have, for the most part, ignored my mental wellbeing.
Yes exercise is good for the mind, releasing all those good endorphins and happy hormones but never have I really taken some quiet time away from the flashing lights and 90s rave music of the spinning studio to put the focus solely on my mind.
I think mindfulness is something that should be taught in school and something that should be taken as seriously as healthy eating and exercise. Even if it's taking 5 minutes a day to ground yourself and relax. I struggle a lot to quieten my mind so hop onto YouTube and listen to a guided meditation to help you out. HeadSpace is also a good app to download.
GRATITUDE
Facing a life threatening disease has a weird way of making you really appreciate life and the people around you. What I realised through my experience is that gratitude, like mindfulness, is something that needs to be practiced. I think we often take life for granted and perhaps you can only truly appreciate it when put in a life-threatening situation but I urge you to PRACTICE gratitude daily. Gratitude comes into a lot meditations that I listen to but seriously you just need 1 minute a day to mentally list everything that you are grateful for. EASY!
CAUSE
Do I know the cause of my cancer? No, not really. Every week I seem to come across new articles about the apparent causes of cancer. Everything from smoking, drinking, diet, the pill, stress, bacon, processed meat, red meat, sugar, white flour, cake, vegetable oil, carcinogens, GMOs, anything that isn't organic, plastic water bottles, bras, mobile phones, laptops, microwaves, sun beds, sunshine, shampoo, cleaning products, the sun....the list is pretty endless.
Basically I think it boils down to luck of the draw. By some unfortunate stroke of bad luck a gene mutated in my body and boom, I had cancer.
From everything I have read, watched, discussed, debated and learned I tend to believe the cause of my cancer was an amalgamation of bad luck, lifestyle influences, mental and spiritual neglect, stress, anxiety and manifested fears. This sounds a little out there but simply put it was issues from all spheres of my existence (physical, mental, spiritual, emotional) that ultimately came to a head.
Deep down I believe I was knocked out of alignment. I felt this happen slowly over the last few years and felt like I was continuously trying to keep my head above water. Well on the 2nd of February 2015 I drowned and can say that, at present, I am sitting happily on dry land.
DEALING WITH IT
I know I have mentioned at several intervals that this blog was my way of hopefully helping others who are going through this situation as well as keeping my friends around the world in the loop as to what was going on.
It has been all of those things but more than that, it was my way of processing each part of my diagnosis and treatment. It was pretty hard reliving each part of my journey but as I finished each blog I was able to lay each part to rest. Like most traumas, the details tend to become very blurry and it is likely that some parts are entirely blocked out, but I will always have this blog as reminder of what I went through, all that I accomplished and will serve as a reminder of how grateful I am to be alive and kicking.
Thank you to everyone for the outpouring of love and support and for listening to me complain for months on end. I really can't thank you enough.
So this is it from me for now. I am off to travel, to work, to explore, to take adventures, to run amok, to relax, to enjoy, to experience, to delight in the small things, to love and to live my life! Peace out home slices.
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