Gonna wear a tight-fitting dress to a party tomorrow and not even worry about how weird my belly looks cuz I can’t help that there’s a flat bit where my bowel used to be that makes the rest of my belly stick out more so I’m just gonna be comfortable with my post-op / post-cancer body instead of feeling self-conscious, mmkay?
Category: Cancer Survivorship
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How has cancer changed people’s perceptions of you?
What do brave cancer patients/survivors do that cancer patients/survivors who aren’t brave don’t do?
What do strong cancer patients/survivors do that cancer
patients/survivors who aren’t strong don’t do? -
Is This Survivor’s Guilt?
I had never experienced survivor’s guilt until very recently. Today at work we had a Macmillan Coffee Morning to raise money for cancer support, and I figured the day was going to be hard. For the first hour
I sat squeezing my stress ball trying to stop my hands from shaking. I don’t even know why they were shaking. My discomfort and reluctance to have anything to do with cancer charity related events seems somewhat illogical. I mean, the Macmillan charity has never tried to kill me. So I already started today having a difficult time trying to understand myself. -
Do We Ever Really Beat Cancer?
I’m not going to spend long on this because I know this subject has been tackled a lot already – there are problems with the language
around cancer – battle metaphors, and so on, which seem to imply that people who ‘lose the battle’ didn’t try hard enough, or that people with cancer can do something about it, which is ridiculous. -
Making other people feel awkward
I realised today that sometimes I avoid talking about my body for fear of making other people feel awkward. Isn’t that a bit messed up?
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Why I Love The Last Leg
It’s Friday night and I’m at home drinking whisky and watching my favourite TV show, The Last Leg. And I’m thinking about why I love it so much.
Last week I was lucky enough to have tickets to go and see the show being filmed live. My partner and I went along, and we had so much fun. I can’t wait until the next season opens up for applications so I can request tickets again – it’s the best thing I’ve done all summer, and considering I visited Sweden, the Canaries, and went on a hot air balloon ride, that makes The Last Leg pretty awesome.
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How do you tell new friends about your cancer history?
I’m asking because I really want to know. In a way, if it’s something that happened in the past, it kind of feels weird mentioning it to someone. But if a person is becoming a friend, you want them to know you better, right? I feel like if someone doesn’t at least know that I had cancer, then they don’t know enough about me, because now it’s a big part of me and my outlook on life.
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Is It Okay To Let Cancer Define You?
Let me start by saying that cancer defines me. I don’t know if I “let” it define me or if I have chosen for it to define me. Either way, the outcome is the same. My Tumblr and some of my other online profiles are simply a string of self-definitions: Writer. Buddhist. Geek. Cancer survivor. And to anyone who says “don’t let it define you,” well it’s too late. It does.
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stop
Sometimes you need someone to yell at you to get off the internet and stop reading things that are psychologically/emotionally harmful to you. And sometimes you’re by yourself and you have to be that person who yells at you.
It’s difficult. But turn off the computer and go to bed.
