Living Abroad with Cancer

This is the “first” post, which unfortunately is a little dry but kinda sets out a skeleton of who I am and maybe why I have started a blog and, at least give you a taste of how I write.

So October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, in the past these months passed me by almost without me knowing. I’d see the odd person wearing pink or sports teams wearing pink but living outside of Australia, it was easy to miss. Somehow this year, it’s been impossible to miss (thanks eavesdropping, technology or Zuckerberg – who knows). Articles and social media posts on breast cancer seem to be flooding my feeds. I won’t wear pink but… (I almost did last month for the Barbie movie but, honestly, if the Barbie movie can’t get me in pink…) I have decided to embrace my oversharing tendencies and talk about it.

Before I go into it. And I apologise straight-up, this will be a slightly vanilla^ post. It will be my first and I feel a need to set the scene, explain who I am. I do hope that moving forward I can write a bit more about different topics and feelings that I have been discovering along this ride. I’m a relatively newly divorced woman in her 40s. I have two fantastic children, who are funny, smart, caring little people and also often complete shits. I work for the United Nations and have done almost my entire professional life. I have lived outside of my home country for around 15-16 years now and continue to do so. I hope that I can continue for a few more years. Moving home somehow feels like I’m giving-up (mental note to self – could be a good post).

^Hopefully this won’t be my only post and that you may actually read more than one if it’s not, so a heads-up on my writing style. It is very casual and is really just a conscious stream of my thoughts. These thoughts are often interjected with tangents that can and cannot be related to the subject. But my feeling is that everyone enjoys a good side-bar/aside. On this one, have been debating with a friend whether or not vanilla can only be used in a context related to someone’s sexual interests or if it can just be used to reference anyone or thing that is lovely but possibly a little bland (though I would strongly argue that if you get the right vanilla – it can totally shine on its own). To prove my point in the argument, I am trying to use it outside of the sexual interests context!

On the 1 May this year, I had my first ever mammogram. A month or so earlier, I had noticed some change in my breast. I had thought to myself that I might need to get it checked. Around the same time, I had some really bad back pain – not something I had experienced before. I did not connect them at the time. It faded, never really went away but faded. A few weeks later, it came back and I had a fleeting thought that it could be related to the change in my breast but also really didn’t stock much in that thought. Then, end of April, I began having pain in my breast* – the one with the physical change. At that point, I had a pretty strong foreboding feeling that I was in some trouble. I never, for once, thought it would be quite as bad as it is, but here we are. Within a week and some scans, autopsies later, I learnt that I had metastatic breast cancer. Five tumours in one of my breasts, lymph nodes affected and five spots in different bones in my body (including my rib, hence the back pain).

*As an aside here, I had some pain in the same breast almost one and a half years earlier. I had actually reached out – through email – to a doctor to ask his thoughts. By the time he responded, the pain had gone away. He had thought that since the pain was on and off it was likely hormonal or muscle strain. He did offer me an appointment but I had meetings on at the times he offered. So… I did what most working people would do (or that is what I tell myself), I said I was too busy and would come back to him if the pain ever came back. It never came back in the sense that I noticed it but within weeks of that correspondence, I found myself launched into what was essentially the downfall of my marriage, so I’m not sure I would have even noticed if the pain had come back. It was just not part of the balls that I was badly juggling and could definitely not handle any more.

I’m now five months in from the diagnosis. Fortunately, the cancer is hormone positive, so I’m on hormone therapy, which is working (the three month scan – the biggest tumour had significantly reduced). I did undergo surgery, but not on my breasts but because I chose to have my ovaries out and I didn’t want monthly injections. Also, I could not have more children in any case after an hysterectomy. The first month – recovering from surgery, adapting to the hormone therapy, menopause and an IV infusion for bone strengthening – was hard. I then went through what I can only describe as a ‘fuck it’ period, where I made some bold decisions (for me) in favour of me having fun and being happy. It coincided nicely with the summer (Northern Hemisphere) and it was an absolute blast.

But here I am now, the end of the summer, visitors have stopped, kids are at school, I’m at work and I’m angry. I feel average more-or-less all the time – not bad, definitely manageable – but average. I have lower energy, heavy headed, body feels a bit sore – I tend to describe it as the day before you come down with something, you feel like something is coming, you are okay but know you won’t be.^ Slowly I think I am realising that this is my new normal – not a phase. I think that is where a lot of the anger comes from. Also, I feel some internal pressure to not go back to the normal but continue making bold decisions and that there is just not enough time for me to sit back, let things happen but that I need to make active choices. Unfortunately, I am also an adult with responsibilities and I need to balance this. I think there is some anger around that too.

^Ironically, as I write that I realise that is quite fitting for how I feel in general about myself and longer-term prospects of the cancer – I know I am okay now but I know I won’t be at some point in the future.

I forget what comes after anger in terms of the stages of grief, though I have a vague idea that it is not some linear line in any case. That being said, I think I totally had denial covered for a few months. Anger has consumed me the last month. Frustratingly, not anger at the unfairness of having cancer but a lot of anger at myself – for those things referenced above related to feeling that I’m not doing enough to make the most out of life. And anger at the impact that will likely have on my children. It is not fair on them and they deserve much more. And some anger that this is my new normal. I now live cancer. With anger comes acceptance (is that the next one*??), and deciding to write about this is, I think, me starting the process of accepting and also trying to see if there’s something I can do with this. How can I use “having cancer” to do something else, something better with my life?

*I decided to look it up… Kübler-Ross’s five stages of grief (developed for people coping with illness, CNN has an article about it, Kristen Rogers, Five stages of grief, 15 May 2023): shock, denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. So no, acceptance is not the next stage but it is also noted that is not linear. But I also wonder if I’m doing some bargaining, I have cancer but I can I use that to be better or do better? Or to help me justify somehow why? Hmm. I don’t know. And I will very rarely purport to know. I’m just going to share my feelings through some writing. I think it will help me process. Maybe it could help someone else process or maybe just help someone else think ‘fuck, I don’t want that – maybe I should go get a mammogram’.

I’m reminded that I have started writing this in relation to breast cancer awareness month. Let’s be honest, I’m not sure I will achieve much awareness right now or ever. But I do think it will do more than me wearing pink. So I will stick to my I won’t wear pink but I will write/talk/share (read: overshare). And if it helps just me through this, that would be awesome. Whether or not it fulfils this new desire ‘to do something’ with the cancer, I don’t know but I’m also not sure I have really unpacked what this actually means yet. I’m sure I will circle back.