I was asked to write about my life – coping with cancer. I was blocked. For a good eight months, I started, I stopped, deleted, started again and stopped again. Finally, it hit me that I really did not like the word ‘coping’. Why, because midst many other thousands of swirling emotions and thoughts – I was afraid to write about how I was ‘coping’ in case anyone realized that maybe I wasn’t actually coping. And then I got angry, who is to say what is coping and what is not.
Two years and almost three months of struggling with this word, I have finally decided that I don’t like the word. Merriam-Webster tells me it means to deal with and attempt to overcome problems and difficulties.[1] Let’s be clear, I am never going to deal with or overcome metastatic breast cancer. But I did find some other words – great ones that really spoke to me – getting by, wrestling, facing and embracing. The four of them together very much appeal to me in different ways and, I think, better describe what I am doing in light of my life-limiting diagnosis.
[1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cope#:~:text=%CB%88k%C5%8Dp-,coped%3B%20coping,usually%20used%20with%20with
I then framed my writing around those four words – how I was getting by with having a life-limiting disease – because let’s be clear, there are many days where it is just getting by. How I wrestled with it – the good and the bad. How – on rare days – I faced it. And, the hardest for me to acknowledge but how I was also embracing it. One day I’ll come back and delve into those areas on the blog but for now, I wanted to share some other words that I just don’t like.
My s*%t list
- Coping: I have struggled so much with how well I am (or am not) coping with cancer. And really, what does it mean to be coping with living with cancer – is coping well going to work, living life and not fully acknowledging what is happening or is it lying in bed crying about the unfairness of the world around us. I am now trying to use words for myself around how I am living with cancer – they include getting by, facing it, wrestling with it and finally, probably the hardest but also most important for me now, embracing it.
- I hope this email finds you well: this phrase, I feel is so indoctrinated within us and annoyingly I struggle to find better ways to start an email. Obviously, I do genuinely mean it when I write it – I do hope the recipient of my email is well, but when I received emails starting with this phrase in the initial months of my diagnosis, I would burn with rage. I was not well and was not going to be well. I also feel it helps feed a narrative that everything should always be well, and this is just not realistic. It’s okay for us not all to be well and it’s normal to just be okay sometimes and sometimes not be okay. I think the most we can hope is that we are all doing the best that we can in the circumstances that we are in – this is not the greatest of openings to an email, so yes, still working on it.
- You’ll be fine: I think this is probably self-explanatory.
- Normal life: I use this phrase quite a lot – even in the opening paragraphs of this piece – but they are words I struggle with. I remember someone telling me that the medication I take allowed me to live a normal life. Yes, but also a resounding no, that is not correct. Nothing about the last year or so have been normal and even when it does go back to ‘the routine of normality’, there is no way – or not that I have discovered – that I can drown out the background cancer theme tune in my head. It impacts on so many of the things I do or say. Maybe this is my new normal and that I am not alone here. So many people have different background theme tunes, maybe not related to cancer, but likely just as loud and just as annoyingly catchy that it makes it almost impossible to get out of their head. I want to be optimistic and say this isn’t normal but maybe we all need to acknowledge the different struggles we face and embrace how amazing we are to live a normal life in spite of the struggles.
- Everything happens for a reason: No, it really doesn’t. The world we live in at the moment, the number of children killed alone in the last year – we cannot begin to believe that everything happens for a reason. Yet, for me personally, I do want to find reason in my current situation. I don’t think it has happened for a particular reason but I do have to acknowledge my privilege – my upbringing, my nationality, the colour of my skin, the opportunities I had because of all of the aforementioned, the fact that I have access to life-prolonging medication – and in acknowledging and understanding that alongside this cancer diagnosis, maybe I can do something or more with the cancer diagnosis. I know I cannot change the world, I cannot probably change my life-limiting diagnosis but can I use the fortunate position I am in to help someone else in a similar position? Can I find something to help me have a purpose with this disease? I hope so.