Sam Alexandra Rose

Tag: cancer

  • it never ends

    I don’t feel like I’ve
    beaten anything. I don’t
    feel victorious. I feel
    tired in a way
    that sleeping won’t remedy.

    It never ends,
    it just subsides.

    I had another bad dream
    about hospitals and cancer last night.
    But at least my dress has flowers on it.

    Whoever said nothing bad can
    happen while you’re asleep
    was wrong. Nightmares can happen.
    The past can happen, again and again.
    The future can happen – every version of it.
    Then when you wake up it can all come true,
    or not, or you could live out a version of
    reality you had never even thought of.
    Better or worse. Suspense without the thrill.
    Sleep is your worst fiction. Reality is
    even more of a nightmare.
    It never ends.

  • survivor thoughts

    Survivors
    are the least important,
    the
    ones with the least need for help.
    Lowest
    priority on the list. Our journey is done.
    We
    won.

    I don’t feel like a winner.

    Why am I upset when I survived, my story’s been told,
    I’m
    out the other side, I’m perfectly alive?
    Where
    is my gratitude? There are people
    worse
    off than me, worse off than I
    ever
    was, therefore mitigating
    anything
    I’ve ever felt, of course.

    My
    emotional needs are nothing
    compared
    to those with stage four
    who
    suffer so much physically,
    some
    who need a miracle.
    I
    have so much to be
    grateful
    for. I’m
    so
    lucky.

    Sharing
    a picture of a candle on Facebook
    does
    not make me feel respected or honoured
    [1 share = 1
    prayer]
    it
    just reminds me of things I don’t need
    any
    help to be reminded of.
    [1 share = 1
    trigger]

    We
    don’t fight, we survive
    and
    it’s not our fault that
    we’re
    not the heroes
    we’re
    painted as.
    We
    are not soldiers.
    We
    are just people
    trying
    to get by.
    There
    is no more
    courage
    or
    strength in us
    than
    resides in
    anyone
    else.

    We
    haven’t
    ‘won
    the battle’
    any
    more than
    others
    failed.

  • I Lost the Game

    Remember that game from when we were kids, where the whole point of the game is to not think about the game and when you do, you have to say “I lost the game”, causing everyone around you to also lose the game?

    And then after that, all you can think about is the game, even though you hadn’t thought about the game in a long time and the only thing that set you off was thinking “hmm, I haven’t thought about the game in a while, I’ve been doing really well”?

    That’s what thinking about my cancer history is like.

    It’s a fucking tedious game.

    I thought I’d been doing well. I had been doing well. It’s just been a bad week is all. Next week will be better.

  • pairs of eyes

    If enough people see your scars
    do they get any lighter?
    if more people know why
    there is a cavity
    where your bowel should be
    does your stomach stick out
    a little less?
    Is there power in more pairs
    of eyes?
    I feel better for being known
    a tiny bit better.
    I feel stronger for standing
    up, validated, vindicated,
    now that I have ‘come out’
    in a sense, as a person who
    has been brave, who has
    seen things
    no pair of eyes should
    have to see. Maybe now
    I’ll feel a little more free
    too, a little more of a
    loose cannon, with no
    need for explanation.
    I should now already be
    justified in anything
    I say or do about this.
    I only hope those new
    pairs of eyes can see
    that this is a
    terrible, and terribly
    important part
    of me.

  • The Colour of Cancer

    What colour is cancer?
    Not the colour of cheerful ribbons.
    Not the pink of awareness,
    or fun-run t-shirts, or a
    decorative brooch.

    The colour of cancer is blood red to me,
    the kind of red that makes my
    stomach flip over.
    Red trespassing where it isn’t
    supposed to be. The white walls
    of the disinfected hospital.
    The white of my mother’s tissue.
    The pastel pattern of a gaping surgical gown.
    The colour of a sleepless night, of shadows
    morphing into hallucinations.
    The blinding light of sunshine intruding
    through curtains opened at 8am sharp.
    The deep shining orange-red of
    my insides. The dark green of
    bile. The non-colour of cardboard
    sick bowls and bed pans.
    The colour of thick, opaque days
    I couldn’t see past. The colours I see now
    when I turn around.
    Crumbling brown soil on my brother’s grave.
    The darkest thoughts of my own resting place.
    The ugliest palette.

  • 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.

    (more…)

  • 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.

    (more…)

  • Disintegrating

    We are the remnants
    of our former selves.
    We are the remains,
    the leftovers.

    To feel like you have been halved,
    partially destroyed,
    and to still have something
    breaking you down bit by bit,
    this is one of the hardest things.
    How much of me will there be left?

    There is something wrong with this.
    There is something wrong with me.

    I have survivor’s guilt
    because while I feel traumatised
    from what I’ve lived through
    (and may yet live through still),
    other people have actually died
    and others still are grieving.

    But I forget I am grieving too –
    the loss of a self,
    the loss of trust and confidence
    the loss of untouched health.

    and when I get wrapped up in this,
    I forget to be grateful
    and I feel guilty for a new reason.

    too many feelings have formed
    and now they all mesh together
    in one big ball, creating
    a new emotion that is
    unidentifiable
    and inescapable.

    ***

    (more…)

  • Haunted like me

    Ghosts have found a home
    wrapped around my throat
    and I can’t breathe.
    that’s where they’re most
    comfortable; that’s where
    I expect them to be.
    it’s testing time;
    these are testing times
    if you are haunted like me.

    I have made friends with
    my ghosts and they understand
    my thoughts. They float inside
    my head. There are ghosts
    resting on my chest,
    juggling with my breath and
    I can’t catch it.
    They won’t let me near it.
    I am playing piggy in the middle
    with my ghosts and it makes me
    too tired to be fired up,
    too tired but still I am reaching out to
    try to catch my breath; I am
    reaching out for someone who is
    haunted like me.

  • 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.

    (more…)