4 years on

This time 4 years ago was one of the most scary, sad and terrible times of my life.  I still can't look forward to my Birthday on 26th September, as that was the day after I lost my breasts and this whole thing really kicked off - reality struck that day.

If you're going through cancer right now, I'm so sorry that you're in this position.  If you want to know how it might pan out over time, well.....

HOWEVER, that time has passed, I have moved on in many ways.  There are positives and negatives:-

Positive
I am much more assertive and will suffer fools less gladly.
I seize the day and find joy in many more things than before - small or large.  I know, cliché, but real.
I have found out who my friends really are, and have been surprised at the number of real, caring people that I have in my life.
I am doing something that I love whereas I was doing something I didn't like before.
I hug my children even more
I am more understanding, compassionate and caring (in my opinion!)
I have come into contact with great new people through the illness.
I have just started to believe that I am nevertheless lucky for what I have (this has taken time).
I am less hung up about going in a swimming pool since these summer holidays and I have re-found the joy I have for swimming (I didn't swim for over a year because I was ashamed of showing my chest area)  I hope that I'll be able to continue this now I'm not on holiday any longer (harder).
I know people now who don't know that I have had cancer.
I'm not a 'survivor' but I'm also not a victim.

Negatives
I feel life's precariousness every more keenly, I have had a layer of insouciance stripped from me forever and it is scary and sometimes my emotional skin feels paper thin.
I still feel the disappointment at the lack of emotional support  given to me by my husband and some members of my family.
I don't like sex any more (my breasts have gone, they were important)
My body is still misshapen and ugly.  I lost a lot of weight; thought that would help, but it didn't, so I put it all back on and realised that I still felt the same about my body whether I was fat or less fat.  It's just out of proportion without breasts, but maybe, recently, I give less of a shit about it (this should be in positives)
I still haven't found the guts to re-explore a reconstruction operation and this hangs over me.
Like everyone, I fear my yearly mammographs and have put it off this year.
I have remember to go to the chemists to get my Tamoxifen every month and taking that pill every day reminds me.
I am very scared that it will come back.

The memories of this time 4 years ago are clear but it is part of my past now.  It could become part of my present again, but I have packaged that period into 'the past'.  Although the threat is always present, I have learnt to live with it to an extent that it doesn't handicap me mentally.  And sometimes, I forget!