First published 20th December 2015
For a whole year, people would often talk to me about how I must be looking forward to getting to the ‘other side’ of my cancer treatment. Their reasoning was that once I was on the ‘other side’ then I could get back to my ‘old self’.
You hear a lot of buzz phrases when you are going through cancer treatment and that pesky ‘other side’ is a popular one.
For me it was never this ultimate goal because even once I had finished 6 cycles of chemo there was still a huge operation that I had to undergo with several months of recovery to follow. Then after all that... I had another follow up operation all while concurrently intravenously receiving Herceptin every three weeks for a year, and wondering why my hair was not growing back. In actuality, it was growing back, albeit slowly but in my foggy brain (good old chemo brain) I had this fantasy that surely my hair would get back to normal within 6 - 9 months. Hmm maybe try two and half years, oh boy.
The ‘other side’ once I got there wasn’t that great. There’s no fanfare about it and truth be told it’s incredibly lonely. After having a year of immediate constant care and attention from nurses, doctors and therapists it was shocking to walk out of my last therapy session knowing I would likely, hopefully, never see those nurses again. Like being tossed out of this perverse kingdom. When the realisation hit me that day I had to take myself to the public restroom and have a cry to myself.
I realised quickly too, that it was impossible to go back to my ‘old self’. It was kind of like peeking behind the curtain, I had seen and done too much, yet I suppose that was the point of it all. You have to keep evolving and learning for yourself, and by doing that you can attract good things into your life. No one can ever stay the same, and who would want to?
Maybe more aptly your ‘other side’ shouldn’t be considered your old life. More likely it’s your blank canvas, and that in itself is a way more exciting proposal to discover who you really are instead of that sick girl.
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