My latest poem has been published by Eunoia Review! It’s called Post-diagnosis and I’m very proud of it. You can read it here – enjoy!
Tag: cancer (Page 3 of 8)
Stage 1a cancer of the lining of the womb, which is pretty much the best result I could have asked for at my appointment today.
Hello! This is a quick update on my health situation. (I realise I always say “quick update” and it ends up being several paragraphs long.)
Since my last update three weeks ago I have had:
– Capsule endoscopy
– Hysteroscopy under general anaesthetic
– MRI scan (today)
– CT scan (today)
I was sitting in my living with my boyfriend and our mutual friend, and the postman came to the back door near where we were sat and put some post through the letterbox and it was a hospital letter for me. But it had some stuff written on the envelope so I didn’t need to open it to know it was bad news. It had a couple of things written by different people on it and it said I had thirteen small brain tumours but the doctor I had was very good and it was probably going to be okay. I didn’t open the envelope to see what the letter inside said they were going to do about it. My boyfriend was wandering around the flat doing something else and my friend was sat next to me – I was sat on the sofa feeling that I couldn’t go on and I might as well just end it now because that would be easier and I was crying and sort of screaming quietly, making some sort of inhuman noises and that’s how I woke up this morning.
But it was just a dream.
I wasn’t going to write about this but here is a super short summary of what has been going on with me this week, which I will type up really quickly, share on Twitter, and then never look at again for all eternity.
The other day I wrote a blog post about how I tend to think of
my body as something separate from myself, rather than part of me. I had a bit of an epiphany and now I think that the narrative I’ve been using to describe my body and my relationship with it has been harmful. You might want to read that before wading into this nonsense – it’s really a series of tweets, and it’s not very long. Basically, cancer has fucked me up in terms of how I think about myself and my body. I’m sure other illnesses can do the same, so if any of these even vaguely relates, keep reading.
I have written a guest blog post for Lucy Turns Pages! It’s all about how writing has helped with my mental health in relation to cancer survivorship. Please take a look and let me know if it strikes a chord! You can find it here: “Writing About Mental Health and Cancer Survivorship”.
It’s all mad. Absolutely fucking mad. I did okay through Christmas, until about 30th December, in anticipation of this appointment with the gynaecologist due to the MRI I had. Spent that evening curled up with my boyfriend crying, and the days leading up to yesterday weren’t much better. Anxious, freaking out. Distracted. Wednesday night my belly was flip-flopping all over the place, doing somersaults.
I visit my uncle
whose nose has been partly cut away
to remove some of the skin cancer,
who can only eat through a feeding
tube, who has lost all his weight,
who has developed an infection
and a bloodied, sore face, whose
wife feeds him and gives him his
morphine and antibiotics, who has
blood in his pee when he goes once
per day, whose organs are shutting
down, who, when he asks if it’s
curtains for him, hears the answer
yes. And I leave to go back to my
upgraded hotel room and I eat pizza
and drink Southern Comfort and
the next day I go home and kiss my
boyfriend and go to work and my
aunt and uncle will carry on for
the next two weeks or maybe more
but that will be all, just a few more
weeks of enjoying this world in that
hell hole of a body and we all watch and
listen and know that we will each follow,
somehow, someday, and we’re all
already on our way.
tubes in places they shouldn’t be
there have been floods here
burst pipes, now there’s a
clear plastic tube coming out of the plughole
sticking out of the sink
trailing out of the door
droplets floating down the tubes
drips
drips
drips from the ceiling
tubes in places they shouldn’t be
there has been blood here
tubes in veins
blood transfusions
morphine drip, anti-sickness
droplets floating down the tubes
drip
drip
drip of memories
in places where they shouldn’t be
