Never give up!

While I was sitting in the waiting area of the Wits Donald Gordon Medical Centre oncology practice earlier this week, the lady beside me started a discussion. She has been coming here every six months for the past 15 years for her follow-up appointments for breast cancer. Like me, her breast cancer is positive for hormone and HER2 receptors. She had a double mastectomy, received chemo- and radiation therapy, and has been on Tamoxifen for 10 years. All of this she shared with me with a smile; her eyes were bright, and she radiated positivity. 

Her journey was not without hardship. She gained 36 kg during her first two years of treatment and struggled with the drugs' side effects. She would get anxious in the weeks leading up to her follow-up appointment. "Even though I've been in remission for 10 years, the fear never really goes away," she told me. "But I had to keep going because there is so much to live for." 

Her message came to me at a crossroads in my breast cancer journey, where I felt enough was enough. I dream about committing suicide. I have a plan with two or three options for killing myself; I am just waiting for the right time. When I discuss these feelings of despair with my psychiatrist and psychologist, they listen and give me hope again. But the hope is often short-lived because how do they know what I'm going through? 

Dear lady, I didn't ask for your name, but you saved my life. You gave me hope again. Your story made me realise that giving up is not an option.

Then, this morning, as I listened to the news about Queen Elizabeth II's death, one channel played an interview, and her words touched me deeply. She said: "Change has become a constant. Managing it has become an expanding discipline. The way we embrace it defines our future." 

The way we embrace change defines our future... 

My life changed in August 2019, and I cannot accept it. I cannot bear that I no longer weigh 58 kg. I cannot tolerate the drugs affecting my cognitive ability. I cannot understand why it had to happen to me. Why did I get breast cancer? Why me!? I've never been sick before, and now I suffer from secondary illnesses from cancer treatment. 

The changes consume my life, hindering me from working through the stages of grief. I've been receiving psychotherapy for a little over a year now. One cannot expect to resolve two years of trauma in 12 months. But I know now that I must never give up!