Sam Alexandra Rose

Tag: cancer

  • a cancerous week

    so we’re going down this route?
    let’s pretend this is fiction.

    I
    can’t I can’t  I can’t I can’t
    there’s
    too much of it
    there’s
    just too much of it
    when
    will it end
    when
    will it go away
    I
    just can’t I’m sorry 

    I can’t go anywhere without it
    It’s
    been a bad week.
    It’s
    not like I’m holding onto it
    I
    just can’t let it go – it’s holding onto me
    so
    what am I supposed to do? 

    I
    can only apologise to myself
    again
    it’s
    been five years since I found out what was going to happen
    five
    years since that photo was taken
    when
    I forced a smile for the flash
    when
    I had something to say but just couldn’t
    when
    I was silent
    when
    you didn’t fucking notice
    when
    I was in shock and it felt sort of like
    no
    big deal
    when
    I didn’t cry 

    I
    am worse now
    I
    am feeling now
    I
    am five years late

    it’s
    been a cancerous week, alright?
    and
    I don’t mean that like how the
    songs
    and the sayings bandy it around
    not
    “I’m as serious as cancer
    when
    I say rhythm is a dancer”
    but
    actual cancer in forums, songs, tv
    where
    I don’t expect it – cancer creeping
    up
    on me, thrown around everywhere
    and
    I have to deal with it
    and
    I fucking can’t
    I
    just fucking can’t
    it’s
    Friday and I’m drinking and
    there
    is probably something wrong with this
    and
    no I’m not sorry
    but
    there is no need for you to worry
    only
    me
    and
    it’s only me
    let
    me deal with this
    I’ll
    take care of it
    somehow
    in
    the morning things will be
    better
    or worse
    I’m
    not sure
    I’d
    love to share this but I can’t
    I’d
    fucking love to share this but I can’t

  • 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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  • Post conversations

    I love how the friend I mentioned in the latest post basically answered the poem I had written in my previous post. <3

  • A message from a friend

    I received an amazing message today. It might not sound quite so amazing to other people, but it has made me feel so happy and empowered and excited. I was talking to my friend about all the things I want to do – travelling, different and unusual things, spontaneous things – and this was his reply:

    “You beat fucking cancer there is fuck all on this planet you can’t do!“

    I hadn’t even mentioned cancer to him but he straight away tapped into why I want to do all this stuff, without me even having to say anything. He got me, and he said exactly what I needed to hear. And now I feel so empowered, and strong, and happy and excited. That’s the reason he’s my bestie. I’ve written it down and taken a screenshot so I can look at it and remember, and I hope his words never lose their effect. Just amazing. And what’s more is he believes it, and he’s made me believe it too. What a great day.

  • Tell Me II

    Tell me I’m amazing and strong and
    how if you were me you’d be proud
    because you don’t know how you
    would have coped.
    Tell me I’m an inspiration, because
    something good has to have
    come from this.
    Tell me something that will
    make it all worth it.

  • Reblog from Tumblr re triggers

    clooovers:

    youneedacat:

    angrybabybirdofprey:

    okay can we just one last thing

    spreading the idea that one is only triggered when having a full blown, system-shut-down panic attack is damaging and delegitimizing to people who have physiologically and emotionally different reactions to…

    Great validating post on triggers. Speaking of which, I’ve been doing really well lately. I’ve been really happy with myself. I haven’t thought about cancer or Lynch Syndrome much for maybe a month now, and when I have, I’ve been able to let thoughts drift into my head, then let them go and move onto something else. And it’s been something I’ve instigated, like looking on the LS Facebook page, and then been able to stop thinking about easily. Until Sunday, when I answered the phone to a cancer charity who have been calling me every day for the past two weeks.

    I had been avoiding answering the phone partly because I was worried about the conversation being a trigger. I finally answered it and the guy on the line asked me why I had previously agreed to donate to the charity, to which I replied “personal experience”. I was then pressed further – “someone close to you?” “Myself…” “What kind of cancer did you have?” I probably should have just said mind your own business or something, but I just went along with the conversation. Then the guy started talking about his cousin who’d had cancer, and had suffered with a low immune system due to the treatment, and did I have that problem too? I didn’t think so. Apparently it was really difficult because nobody could visit his cousin if they had even the sniffles. That does sound difficult and though I sympathise, I don’t actually remember asking. I’ve had the charity (maybe not the same charity, thinking about it) call me before and they’ve always been really nice, but never as personal as that, with their questions or their own unsolicited anecdotes. It was all very strange and a little triggering, and also turned out to be totally unnecessary because they wanted me to donate regularly, which I do anyway.

    So. I think that’s the reason I’ve been finding it a little difficult to catch my breath a few times over the last couple of days. Breathlessness caused by stress, I think. I’m just going to have to try really hard to kerb my thoughts and not slip back down that hill. It’s only a setback if I let it be a setback, right?

  • Guest Blog Post At IHC.com

    I had another guest blog posted, this time over at IHadCancer.com, musing about the positive and negative effects cancer has had on my life (yes, there are one or two positives!).

    Check it out here:

    http://www.ihadcancer.com/h3-blog/03-21-2015/What-Would-My-Life-Be-Like-Without-Cancer

    Thank you for reading. 🙂

    people keep saying
    how strong I am and
    I’m slowly starting
    to believe them.

  • Watering Weeds

    I don’t know if I can rake this all up again.
    It’s too close to the surface as it is
    and requires no watering to grow,
    there’s no need to hoe, and the seeds
    were sown so long ago and so deeply
    burrowed – I am borrowing memories
    that never run out, I go back in time
    every time I write a single line and
    it’s scaring me so much right now
    I just can’t.

    I don’t know if I can do this Lynch syndrome memoir/self help book thing. I think it might be too hard. I’m going to try anyway, but I’m afraid I’m committing myself to something that is going to be more of an emotional struggle than it’s worth. I will press on. Just not tonight. Writing is hard for so many different reasons.

  • Guest Blog Post on IHaveLynchSyndrome.com

    I wrote a guest post for Ihavelynchsyndrome.com! If you’re interested in me blabbering on about Lynch syndrome and self-improvement and so on, clicky here: http://www.ihavelynchsyndrome.com/10-truths-lynch-syndrome-guest-blogger-sam-rose/#.VOeJJfmsVqU

  • Self-love (oh yeah)

    I’ve decided that flouncing in and out of weird moods triggered by, well, cancer-related triggers, is not good enough. I know I’m struggling to be positive but when I get into a funk, I get so deep into it that it’s like I lose sight of how and where I came in and it’s like I’m not even sad for the original reasons anymore, I’m just unhappy without knowing why. I think there are a lot of things I get upset about – what I’ve been through in the past, fear that I might get cancer again, feeling upset that so much has changed and I don’t feel like my old self anymore – I think that’s the biggie a the moment. (Why I’m struggling so much now, five years on, I have no idea.)

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