My Breast Cancer Diaries 1: what comes next after a diagnosis?

I decided that I will create a diary of my journey with breast cancer in the most amateur style. I do it for my own mental health because it gives me a sense of agency. I am not completely helpless against this and I can continue to have a normal life if I decide to do so. I believe that any sort of victory is first achieved in the mind and then in the physical realm. If anyone wants to have a chance to go through any hell with a smile they better keep their mental health sharp as a fighter’s sword. Remember Winston Churchill’s words of empowerment: if you’re going through hell...keep going.

Perhaps my challenge is bigger because I moved into a new town away from any family. I literally know no one in here. Who will hold my hand during chemo? I have no idea, I rely on my sister travelling hundreds of kilometres to come at least once a month. But this “I do not know anyone” changed as I joined some groups with mutual interests as mine. Last week a friend told me it is a bad idea to continue with the initial plan (to go study arts) and I should go back to my native town where I have some family and support. I didn’t feel like killing my childhood dream again. So here I am. Solo with my cancer in a new town in which I have both a dream and a challenge on my hands. Tough? Not really. While I was waiting a couple of days ago in front of a hospital to see if they have room for me I saw two parents with their child, a boy, walking out of the hospital. The boy had his leg amputated from the knee down. That is tough in my eyes, not what I have. When I compare my problem with other types of problems it seems like a walk in the park. This is a good mental strategy in order not to dwell into the misery of the thought: why me?

I started recording short videos whenever I felt like it because I have the hope to someday show them to my children in order to empower them. If I could go though this and was able to have you then you can achieve anything. The day after I found out that I have breast cancer I went to the pharmacy and bought prenatal supplements. Crazy? Yes, by the world’s standards. But if I were to focus on the future I do plan to remain fertile and to conceive. So why not start now? I bet this is one crazy thing that that a lot of young female patients who don’t have children yet do not do after finding out their diagnosis: planning for the better future, the one after the disease is gone. If the focus is on this problem that I have on my left breast then this is where all of my energy will be. It is a bad strategy on all levels. The wolf we feed is the wolf who grows.

The pity that people have in their eyes when they hear I have cancer is something difficult to tackle with. I am not an invalid and I do plan to stick around on this earth if God allows me to. As I had to deal with telling people what I have I also had to put a mental armour. This challenge , how I like to call my breast cancer, gave me a beautiful gift: to be able to conserve my energy and choose to have a normal life.

My results from the immunohistochemistry have partially arrived and my oncologist told me that next week we will have the complete result. I have to go and do an electrocardiogram and an echocardiogram as I will most likely need to start chemotherapy. The same day I went running with a running group that I discovered on the internet in this town. I don’t run. I hike, I swim, I don’t run. But I went for it. I really liked it and for that one hour my mental noise stopped. It feels amazing to not think of anything and just be. I did not tell them that I have cancer. I didn’t want this to be my story of how they met me.

I started to enjoy my hair at a different level. We as women can often rush to wash it or style it. Now I start to regain some respect in regards to having this lioness mane knowing that some chemotherapy treatments might result in me losing my hair.

I started to explore this new town and visited some interesting places. At a particular moment I captured some photos in an old building. It would have felt scary to visit this place at night. But something surprised me: in all of that dust, in all of those abandoned rooms, there was still the most magical thing we all need – light. When light enters through the smallest crack something happens with that place. It can become beautiful even when from the outside it looks like the scariest place. I compare this with hope. If you have a tiny seed of hope it can blossom. Maybe the surroundings, the circumstances, the diagnosis, the things that the world says you’re going to experience scare you . But if you protect your hope you can bring in the light in all of the corners of your being. I don’t think the world is prepared for happy cancer patients. I don’t think the world is prepared to see someone who can carry with joy whatever life throws at them. A thought popped into my mind while I was waiting at my oncologist’s office: nobody healed from being upset and sad. So you might as well laugh it off as there are better chances of recovery if you’re crazy optimistic no matter what kind of challenge you are facing right now.

Diagnoses come and go. Everyone walking on the street has a problem that they think is bigger than the one the guy across the road has. People forget other people. Nations forget their heroes who gave life and blood for an ideal. The mere idea that we are mortals yet we are infinitely important and powerful is a paradox that we have to live with. I am not my body. I am not my bones. I am not my flesh. Attachment of how I look is going down and I like it. Maybe people are more keen to see someone’s soul if they don’t have to stop at amazingly good looks.

Moving to a different town can be exhausting. I was happy to finally settle in. My palm tree pot became a home for some mushrooms to grow, a thing which made me laugh, and my llama comfort plush toy has added another town to their list

What I find helpful to think at right now is how I want to go though this in a way that will make me proud to share it to my children someday. I don’t want to tell them a story in which I was broken and beaten up by some diagnosis. I want to carry this challenge with dignity and with the same faith and hope in the divine. As I am knowing the medical system in which cancer patients have to swim I can tell there are so many necessary improvements needed. Maybe I can change something. From what I experienced until now I can tell you that there is not enough support when it comes to medical aid. I think that any cancer patient should benefit of free activities that can support a normal life and a psychological comfort: massage, gym, swimming, hyperbaric oxygen therapy, theatre and opera and concert tickets, natural supplements and discounts on retails stores in order to eat healthier and better and these things should happen as soon as the cancer diagnosis is received. I can see so many things that could be better. In my utopian version of society I can see big companies like Uber providing special onco-drives for patients coming from treatment at a special price because, just like me, there can be people who don’t own a car or don’t have a family member to drive them to and from chemo. Only someone who is going through this can see the missing pieces from the system.

You might say: why care? I will say: someday it might be you instead of me and then you’d wished someone would had cared. I see the world with a different lens now as it is easy to believe the system is okay when you are on the healthy side of the world. I would have never picked this lens in order to enrich my vision about the world. It was given to me by God because there is a higher purpose behind this cancer. I don’t see it completely now but I trust the process. Meanwhile I am enjoying and gaining a new sense of appreciation for my hair. I enjoy my new place. I admire the little mushrooms which grew inside my palm pot after I moved in here. I enjoy life as it happens. Day by day.