What Doesn't Kill You by Rachel Haynes

Author:Rachel Haynes
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781786784438
Publisher: Watkins Media
Published: 2020-03-09T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 12

WHAT A DIFFERENCE A YEAR MAKES!

When I woke up on the morning of 16 August 2012, my first thought was cancer. That was shocking as it sunk in that there must have been many days this past month when I had not given it a thought. And if you told me I would have felt like that a year ago, I simply would not have believed you.

Yes, it was a whole year to the day since I had been diagnosed with advanced cancer. I had planned to ignore the date as it was hardly an experience I wanted to relive like a treasured old cine film, but I could not help but say, “What a difference a year makes!”

I was busy again, not sure doing what exactly, real life just got in the way. I would not have called it humdrum yet, and perhaps I never will again, but I was certainly trying to rediscover normality, whatever that was.

So what did this new stage of post-remission normality feel like?

I bounced between numbness and the sort of emotional intensity that made me feel hyper-alive with excitement, and then heartbrokenly sad with chest-racking sobs and sideways tears.

I threw myself with unnecessary speed into a post-chemo party probably in an effort to convince myself that it was true, but, most importantly, to thank the small army of wonderful people who had helped so selflessly. But I was lousy company, and despite having over 80 of my dearest friends and relatives over for the day and night, I wandered around almost mute with shock, strangely detached from the love and support all around me. This phase lasted 12 hours, and then the floodgates opened and I spent the next two days weeping at the truth of the world around me, from the everyday normalness of household bills to the sounds of birds tweeting in the hedges.

A similar thing happened a couple of weeks afterwards when I spent time at a residential “wellness” course at the Penny Brohn Cancer Centre in Bristol with my cousin Rebecca for moral support. The first day was reassuringly calm but I had no warning I was to spend the entire second day with a box of soggy tissues screwed up in my hand and dissolving at the sight of a rain drop resting on a leaf or the smell of lavender on my hand. The emotional load was draining but the first step in coming to terms with what had happened and trying to move on. The people at Penny Brohn are wonderful and it remains one of my favourite places in the world. It was eye-shuttingly amazing how easy it was to get to sleep at night without the twin evils of caffeine and sugar (banned) propping me up like an old drunk in a whisky bar past closing time (although I am not sure another resident who confessed to smuggling in two litres of Coke and 30 years’ supply of nicotine patches had quite the same experience!).

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