Cancer. The word itself is terribly emotive. It has connotations of death or illness that linger, like a faintly detectable smell, on anyone that either has had cancer, or has lost a close relative from it. We know it tends to run in families and I think this is what had lured me into what turned out to be a false sense of security. Despite having a grandfather and a father who smoked, two female relatives who were, shall we say larger women (personally I prefer the word FAT but am aware of yet more connotations around it), I have no knowledge of any family history of cancer. Diabetes, varicose veins (‘legs – they run in our family’ Granny Clara), late onset asthma in my mother, leg ulcers, but no cancer.
So. I was expecting some of the above. I already have varicose veins. They don’t bother me. Other people seem more bothered by them than I am. I’ve seen both grannies and my mum with them. They’re almost inevitable and I’m not vain (boom boom!). I have always been slightly concerned and careful about knocking my veins, given that varicose veins can turn into leg ulcers.
I was also expecting some sort of heart disease, brought on by being fat. And before anyone decides to preach (no names will be mentioned, but you know who you are), I have spent my whole life trying to correct this. I’ve lost most of the overweight several times. If I’m not dieting, I’m about to go on one. I generally don’t eat crap, unlike a lot of skinny people I know. But I’m fat. I don’t like it, don’t accept it and probably never will. I try most of the time to prevent it or at least to stop it getting worse, unlike a lot of people who take other equally dangerous risks with their health (smoking, drugs, drink for example). I worry about the health effects AND how it looks. That isn’t to say I dislike my appearance. I’ve got an optimum weight, which I’m happy with, although I’m over it at the moment. MY choice of optimum weight is not in line with the medical profession’s preference, but it does leave me with a BMI of approximately 29/30 which is over what is advised but below where I tend to hover naturally.
I think therefore, I was fairly realistic about health problems I was likely to develop. No cancer gene, predisposed to minor health problems, with a couple of probably more serious ones that would be self induced.
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Since I’ve been diagnosed with cancer, I’ve noticed other attitudes about the disease/condition/whatever it is surfacing in my mind. The breast with cancer in it, is, in my mind, tainted. I hide it in my bra, feel the lump occasionally (Is it bigger? Is there more than one now? Are there changes?), look at it in the mirror but certainly I feel that my left breast is almost contagious. Which is why, during sex, I’m shocked when R does anything with it. My attitude is obviously not universal.
I’ve also started to discover that I view cancer as dirty. So similarly to my poor boob, I am also tainted, dirty, very slightly less than clean on the inside. Where the hell this attitude comes from I have NO bloody idea. The knowledge I’ve gained from the doctor about the way the lymph glands work has reinforced this attitude. I can almost FEEL the dirtiness from the lump spreading itself around my body. Or at least I can at 4am when I wake up with night terrors. Which is when I’m at my most panicky.
In the week after my biopsy, I developed pains in my breast and armpit which also ran down my left arm. The pain of the actual biopsy had gone after a couple of days so I became convinced this was the cancer growing and spreading. When I went to the hospital next, I asked both the consultant and the nurse about this. Neither of them knew what could be causing it. Neither of them offered any suggestions or examined me again. This was really unhelpful and did nothing to put my fears at rest.
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