Beating Cancer

Cancer is a nasty, sneaky, frightening, sometimes painful illness to have – and you won’t hear me say anything different.

But you also won’t hear me say there’s nothing you can do about it. Because life is for living – fully – but one day at a time. And one day lived well can easily eclipse a year of living without taking notice, of who you are, who loves you, what you can do in this wonderful world of ours.

My personal journey through cancer began on a mild bright day, Tuesday 16th July 2001.

At 9.45am I performed a funeral ceremony. I can always ‘do the job’, no matter how ill I am – and I was very ill. I’d been in the emergency department at Monash Medical Centre in Melbourne since the early hours of the morning, with a ‘mass’ in my abdomen – yet they were in no hurry to check it out. Although I’d arrived in an ambulance, they transferred me into a wheel chair and sat me, right next to the front door which was opening and closing on the cold night air, without so much as another glance my way.

I had a commitment to perform this funeral service – and I’d been trying to reach the funeral director. Wouldn't you know that would be the only time he'd turned his mobile phone off to get some much needed rest. I'd hoped that he or someone else could pick up my paper work and do the service for me. But no luck.

So around 8am, after 3 or 4 hours sitting there in pain, I signed myself out – went home, dressed, put some make up on and did what I had to do.

A few months later I was speaking to the woman whose husband I’d buried that day and she was astounded to find out what dire straits I’d been in. I’d looked fine, as I always do until I’m right at death’s door. But while I’m able to put one foot in front of the other I do what I must and allow myself to collapse later.

On the way back from the service, I phoned my GPs surgery on my mobile and asked to see her urgently. She knew by now that I wasn’t one to panic, so she fitted me in. By 5pm, after a CT scan and a visit to a previously seen gastroenterologist, I had a diagnosis of cancer totally blocking my bowel. Wheeled into an ambulance – again , my car left behind in the street, I was on the way to life-saving emergency surgery.

The surgeon, on his second visit to the ward the following morning, while we waited and waited until an operating theatre was available, seemed concerned that perhaps I didn’t understand that what I had was cancer. Perhaps I didn’t seem worried enough? But I’d been ill for 12 or 18 months already. I wasn’t surprised at the diagnosis. And being so sick I could very plainly see the writing on the wall, feeling my body shutting down.

Most doctors aren’t all that used to their patients calling a spade a blooming shovel, so I was quite impressed that my surgeon only minimally reacted when, under such duress, I didn’t hold myself in check, but replied “At this point I don’t give a s--t what it is. I just want it out!’

Later, he was to say to me ‘Beryl, I can’t guarantee you’ll come off the operating table alive’. But you know, by that time I didn’t care. I couldn’t even raise any concern over leaving my five adult children and six grandchildren – and that was quite amazing, because I’ve always been the original ‘Earth Mother’.

But one thing I clearly remember from that first few days is thinking ‘I know how to do this’. My life has been one of great difficulty across many fronts, including the experience of several chronic illnesses, starting with juvenile arthritis at the age of 12.

So I have worked out what to do when faced with adversity. And I’ve learned a lot more during the past 20 years of helping others work through their own disasters.
My four children too, growing up with a mother who’s had several illnesses and operations, have developed their own ways of dealing with this.

So 'do it' I did. And today I'll give you the very first 'cancer poem' from that time, which is in my book 'Cancer - a Journey' (available through my website www.anotherlife.com.au).

Read the next instalment - what happened next - next week.

CANCER? HO HUM

Cancer? Hmmph!
What makes it think it can get at me
With its eating ways
Chomping on my bones
Or flesh, or sinews, or brain?

And that’s the thing, isn’t it?
The brain’s the thing
that plays the game
The thinking,
if you don’t watch out

Call it ‘The Big C’
And the game’s on
As if it can be bigger than I

But cancer –
Well now, that’s another thing
Cancer is a little thing
A thing that needs to eat
From others
Lest it die

And I’m going to make it die

10th September - early

Much love Beryl