'Once cancer enters your life you are never quite the same person' - Mel O'Neill

Here she shares her latest thoughts living with cancer. 

ANY new year brings a tsunami of emotion. 

Whether it's accomplishment or regret from the year we’ve left behind or hopes and dreams for the future year ahead. 

Or perhaps fear of what will be?

My emotions have been intensified to the max now and over the last few months as I’ve gone into Christmas and New Year with a dark cloud hovering over my head as a red patch begins to spread over my shoulder and down my back along with an intense itching and tenderness down my arm.

I tried my hardest to wear a smile and mask my feelings so that others could celebrate the festivities in comfort and without worrying for me.

After a few years of having cancer I found it hard to understand those that after having had their initial treatment, were now cured or in remission yet continued to live in fear of it returning.

I have never had that luxury so I longed for a remission prognosis even after being told it was no longer curable, I never gave up hope.

But upon starting 2019 and having inflammatory breast cancer for almost 8 years I am struggling to see light at the end of my tunnel.

In 2018 I went to too many funerals all of which the deceased died of cancer.

Most of them never thought cancer would take their lives and had so much hope that they would get better, as do I.

I keep hearing on the news that they are discovering new things all the time which is amazing, all of which seems to be about earlier detection and if it is detected early the cure rate is much higher with new, improved drugs working so much better, but nothing as yet, for someone living with secondary, incurable cancer and reversing their prognosis.

So I wonder how much longer this clinical trial will keep working as I am the last one left on it as others have had to leave the trial for various health reasons.

Having been told my scans won’t always remain clear (as they have always been clear over the years) I tell myself that statistically that may be true but I am clearly not a statistic outliving the time frame of this trial.

I went to my meditation class where I was reminded that whatever our thoughts we are all still ok because we are here living and breathing and how we choose to react to our thoughts is a choice.

So how would I feel without these gloomy thoughts?

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This is why I keep so busy so I don’t have too much time to think.

Learning to meditate allows me to still my mind and realise that these thoughts are coming and going but I am still ok which in turn allows me to appreciate and be grateful for all I have and I can let these thoughts float away like letting go of a helium balloon. 

So I have nothing but compassion for everyone touched by cancer, be it them or a relative, cured or in remission or like me, living with it because once cancer enters your life you are never quite the same person as you once were.

I last wrote of how many wonderful things I have made happen in my life since being diagnosed, having the car accident and Carl's near death experience knowing I would never have experienced such wonderful things had I not had these tragic circumstances making me live more presently and a richer life. 

But the worrying thought is always there reoccurring of my life being cut short too soon and although I learn to live with the fear, the longer I remain in cancer’s clutches the heavier the burden becomes.

The meaning of strength in a cancer patient is the ability to carry that heavy burden whilst still living life to the full, doing what you love and living a day to day life still smiling.

Practising meditation makes it a little easier to let these thoughts float away.

C – Cancer

A – Always

N – No matter what

C - Changes

E – Everyone’s

R – Reality

So I’ll try not to live in fear and know that I am fit and well and with this blog as my platform I can make a difference to people’s lives.

My future can be bright if I choose to vision light at the end of my tunnel.

I have planned my funeral many times over after receiving bad news or at a crossroads.

And then I remember that nobody has attended it yet, that I am still alive and could be for a lot longer.

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