Me, the big C and anxiety

Deadpool was right, cancer is a shit show. But like all great shows, they have their ups and downs, the meet-cute and the happy ending. I'm yet to see if I will have my happy ending but in the mean time I will take joy in the little things. Like the blue badge for instance. The best part of cancer is the blue badge. Best is the wrong word, but so is perk. Advantage doesn’t sound right either. Neither does the silver lining. Please don’t misunderstand. I don’t have cancer. I live with cancer. I met T when I was 26. 2 years out of a 5 year relationship and mentally prepared - or so I thought - to start a new relationship. Let me tell you now. No kind of mental preparation can ease the pressure of loving someone with cancer. My story is of love, cancer and mental illness. Whatever fight you are fighting and whoever gets in your way, the basis is the same. All rules apply.

I am in the unique position of only knowing T with the big C. He was diagnosed 6 months before we met but as previously mentioned, the magnesium I feel towards him overrides all logic towards starting and being in a relationship with someone so ill. It does however produce a bond unimaginable. I have written about T’s battle before, but never my own. I always felt that I had no place to write about my struggles as I chose to commit to someone who could not guarantee a future. But if by verbalising my anxieties it helps to clear my thoughts then why not? And if my words can help some one other than myself who is going through the same, whether this be cancer or mental illness then I guess I should be happy to tell my story. I may not be the only one to have gone through this journey, there will be millions of other. But I am the only person who can tell my story. The best observation of life I have ever heard is what follows. Robin Williams' speech in 'Good Will Hunting' will forever by my go-to if I get lost amongst it all.

Robin Williams' observations of love and life and everything that surrounds it

So here we go, please stick with me...

I remember one of the first nights we spent together. We were lay in bed and I was wondering how God could be so cruel. Medicine and science has no room for God when it comes to disease but the big C calls for a higher power. I do not practise religion but it’s surprising how many times I have turned to God since those first nights with T. It all seemed like an out of body experience at first. I knew he was very ill and I knew the prognosis was dismal but I didn’t feel dread or worry. Just the giddiness of a new relationship. Whether this was denial or self preservation I don’t know but I didn’t fully appreciate the magnitude for at least 12 months.

When we first met, T was coming to the end of a 6 month course of chemo. He still had the pic line attached to his arm and still had appointments but other than that you’d never have known he was ill. We had regular nights out, as friends, and I have to say that he was the life and soul of all parties. We soon became BFFs. It was 3 months later that we started our relationship and the ‘party’ continued from there. It’s important for me to give you a little bit of a background story because things changed soon after. T was reluctant to commit to me while he was still so unsure of how his treatment had worked and I became more and more confused about his feelings. It was hard for me to understand why he had changed towards me so I became the awful needy girlfriend. And here comes the anxiety. I was insecure, I was unsure of myself, I was in desperate need of validation. It took me a long time to realise that T hadn’t changed but I had. I massively underestimated the situation I was in and I blamed him for all the negative feelings that had been  unearthed. I would mope when we weren’t together and I would sit, phone in hand, waiting for any kind of contact. I have to admit, I hated the first 6 months of our relationship.  When we weren’t together I was sure he was with someone else and his reluctance to introduce me to his friends and family made me sure that he was embarrassed by me. The more I pushed to be a part of his life the more he pulled away and it was a massive power struggle between us. We spent our first Christmas and New Years Eve apart. Crushing comes to mind. This all continued until the 11th month when my sister got married and he was my plus one. I felt so elated that people would see us as a couple but this was my family and my friends. We celebrated our first anniversary in the June but still nothing from his side. Along with the anxiety came jealously, possessiveness and down right crazy behaviour.

The beginning of the end of my neurosis came in the October. The 19th to be precise. We were lying on my bed at my mom’s house watching Taken 2. As if the night wasn't bad enough by that admission it soon took a harrowing turn. T started to have a seizure. His body did things I’d only ever seen in a exorcism film. Between the screaming and 999 call and crying, I was sure T was going to die. I remember begging, to who I don’t know, not to take him away from me. As his breathing became more erratic and blood poured from his mouth, my only thought was ‘this is it. He’s going to die’. He didn’t die and he wasn’t taken away from me, God had my back on that one. When he came round he looked like a lost child and it was, without doubt, the most heartbreaking moment in the 4 something years that we’ve been together. He looked at me like he didn’t know who I was and why I was there. Turns out he didn’t know where he was or what day it was either. After an ambulance ride and a long wait in A & E he was fine and the seizure had passed. At this point I went into shock. I remember nurses rushing around me and checking if I was OK but I didn’t understand why. It was like hearing everything with an echo on delay. It’s like floating and watching the drama from above. You can see it and you can hear it but you can't feel it. What followed was another diagnosis, this time a brain tumour. Within 10 days of that first seizure T had a craniotomy and after 10 days in hospital he was discharged with no further treatment to be had. The doctors assurance that the tumour had been fully removed did nothing for my anxiety. I fussed and threated about T constantly. When we were in bed I had flashbacks of that night and waited for him too die in his sleep. This obviously didn’t happen but it didn’t stop me thinking about it. All the time. I saw my doctor and they suggested antidepressants. It was a firm no from me but I took the offer of sleeping tablets. My desperation for sleep was placated by the tablets and things began to calm. Life went back to normal, he returned to work and our live's carried on. Until the February. He was in the same state of confusion and I was in the same state of panic. The tumour had returned. This time it was more aggressive and more of a f***ing nuisance. As the tumour had returned, so had my anxieties. I fell deeper into a nervous state of mind and I hated life. The night before his readmission to hospital T asked me to shave his hair - as I had the time before - in preparation for the operation. This was the first time I remember fully breaking down. I had been batting away the reality we were in and that small act, of shaving his hair, quite literally tipped me over the edge. My sister took over and I walked away to steady my nerves. The following day he was readmitted for the second craniotomy but they noted that his breathing wasn't great and he mentioned that he'd had a chest infection. They asked if they could do a scan of his chest just to check things out. Turns out the infection was actually blood clots on his lungs. Great. They said he wouldn't have survived the surgery if the clots had gone unnoticed. Brilliant. The operation was cancelled and he was prescribed anti-coagulant injections. The following day my parents, with thom I live, flew out to Thailand for a 3 week holiday - how could they leave me? This may seem over dramatic but I needed them with me. The hospital kept him in for a few days so they could administer the new medication and keep an eye on him. I went to see him on the 5th day of his stay and he started to have a seizure as we talked. I pressed the buzzer and the nurses came to our aid but for me the damage was done. To see him in that same state, with the same childlike look on his face broke me. I was completely broken. I don't remember much of my journey home from the hospital but I do remember crying on the bus on my way there. There was no one there - T was in hospital and my parents, thousands of miles away. I ended up at my sister's house and made the decision that I would not be going to work the next day. I needed to sleep and cry and gather myself. I called the doctors the following morning and asked for an emergency appointment. I told the doctor I needed a few days off and he asked me to explain what had been happening. I had tunnel vision when it came to T. I couldn't see anything past him. Until that moment I had managed to keep myself in the dark about my real feelings. Well that was it for me. I broke down as I explained all of the above. Since that frightful night in October I had barely slept and when I did I had the most horrendous nightmares. I was in a constant state of high alert - waiting for something bad to happen. I was distracted, irritable and disinterested. The doctor then explained that I was suffering the effects of PTSD. Soldiers suffer PTSD, not me. But he was right. The flash backs, the panic, the night terrors. He was right. This time I accepted the help of anti-anxiety medication and 1 month off work. I laughed and said I only needed a week. Boy was I wrong. When I left the surgery I found myself wondering through the park, I was aimless and emotional but most of all I was lost. Who could I talk to? Who would understand the pain and confusion and chaos inside my head? I found my way home and accepted that only I could repair the damage to my mind and I needed peace and calm and rest. I barely saw T during the following weeks, but this was a good thing. At first the medication made me feel constantly nauseous and I had spells of hyperactivity but in general my mood had shifted. T had begun to have seizures nearly every day and his speech had declined to the point that he was barely producing words let alone sentences. He was on the highest dose of anti-seizure tablets and a huge dose of steroids to help with the swelling of the tumour. The operation was rescheduled for the June when they were sure that the clots had dissolved but the months leading to this were abusive to say the least. I had to endure months of what I like to call 'steroid rage'. There is nothing quite like it. T has never raised so much as an eyebrow at me but for those few months I was genuinely scared of him. Steroids produce an angry monster. Like Jekyll and Hyde, he could switch as any moment. It got to the point where we couldn't bare to be around each other. We went nearly a month without seeing each other and barely spoke during this time. Looking back now I can see that it saved our relationship.

During that time I became 'me' again. This was of course aided by a lot of medication but all in all it was a positive time for me a least. I felt like I had been living in the shadow of my significant others. Not just T but the relationship before him. I realised that in order to keep my partners happy I was sacrificing myself. This was no fault of theirs - it was all me. My laziness, my disinterest, my need to please. These things had all become my downfall but it was time to pick myself up and live the life I deserved. 

It has been nearly 2 years and 6 months since that dark period and things have grown and changed and adapted to form a wonderful relationship. Don't get me wrong, I have my moments but would I be human if I didn't? I was self punishing for every little thing that happened but I've now learnt that it is just as important to be kind to ourselves as it is to be kind to others. Some times I don't know if the calmness I feel is due to a heavy dose of sedatives or my mind being peaceful to the world around me. I said this to my dad once and he said that it didn't matter either way. As long as I was feeling better it really didn't matter. And he was right. With all the stigma that is attached to mental illness and it's treatments, it is easy to see how people get left behind. I have felt my own range of emotions when it comes to my anxiety but this is something I have battled for years, even before T. I think we need to be easier on ourselves as a general rule. Regardless of the relationships we have, the burdens we carry and the lives's we live. It is our duty to ourselves to live the life we deserve. Now you may think that I have gone off topic but this is such an important outlook to have when caring for a loved one. At my worse I could barely care for myself let alone T. How could I be his support system when I was in a stage of system failure. This is why it is so important to reboot every once in a while. Not just for the people around us but for ourselves. 

For anyone with anxiety or depression or any other form of mental illness, please relax, take stock and breathe. Take that extra moment before facing the world. Plant a smile on your face, even if you don't feel it. After a while the smile will stick and will reach your tummy. Take those moments for granted and live your life. Its so easy to be distracted by the darkness in our lives but even the smallest glimmer of light has the potential to grow. Out of darkness comes light and it shines just like a diamond. Do not shadow your sparkle because these are the things that get us through. I have a new found appreciation for myself and this comes from hard work, hard falls and hard lessons. But I've heard them say that nothing worth having is easy to come by. Everyone is fighting their own battle whether this be cancer or depression or a common cold. It is all relative. Never hide your feelings, never undermine yourself but above all be proud. Proud that you have overcome the odds, the name calling, the breakdown of relationships. I'm sure like me you will feel a plethora of emotions; love; hate; guilt; resentment; love; hate; shame. But that's OK, if we can feel it then we are alive and what a time it is to be alive!

The point of all this? The same rules apply whether you are caring for yourself or a loved one. It's OK to be selfish sometimes. We should all strive to be the best version of ourselves, just make sure your best is something to be proud of. Never judge others unless you know there struggles. Never judge yourself for crying or hiding or having a down day. They just make the good days better.

My final thoughts... Mental illness is a shit storm but we have to ride out the storm to dance in the rain.


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