I'm afraid to celebrate the end of my treatment

I’m afraid to celebrate

Last week I was told by my oncologist that he didn’t intend to see me ever again. That this is it, the end of my treatment. My successful treatment. I’m one of the lucky ones. Off I go to live the rest of my life.

I feel like I should be jumping for joy and yet instead there’s this numbness. It’s almost as if I’m too afraid to celebrate, as if celebrating may tempt fate. As if celebrating is disrespectful to the unlucky ones. Anxiety, guilt and fatigue rule.

Perhaps cancer has left more of a mark on me than I ever imagined it could or would.

Cancer has been who I am for the last 10 months

The last 10 months have been tough. They’ve been full on and intense. There hasn’t been too much time to think, it’s been action stations. It’s been, quite rightly so, about getting through the treatment. The 'fight'. But what do you do when the fight is over?

I began to wonder who I am now. Cancer has been who I am for the last 10 months. I can’t just go back to how it was before, but I’m not sure if I know what happens next.

I want to forget cancer happened

I’m very conscious that people probably don’t really want to hear me banging on about cancer constantly! The problem is that it’s almost always in my thoughts. I’m sure everyone just wants to forget it happened. Bloody hell, so do I! Looking to the future is the most obvious thing to do, what good can come from looking back?

Of course everyone around me wants to go back to their 'normal' life again now. The last 10 months have been scary, unpredictable and completely out of their control. They’ve had to watch me go through it all from the side-lines. They’ve felt helpless and scared and they’ve prayed that soon it would be over, and now it is over.

Although, the problem is, I’m not sure it will ever really be over. The urgency is over, the life threatening bit, but what is left behind is the messy stuff. The stuff that people don’t really like talking about. The stuff that you can’t see. The stuff that we’ve all been suppressing whilst we’ve been getting on with the fighting. The emotional stuff.

The only person putting pressure on me is me

I went back to work a few weeks ago on a ‘phased return’. I can already feel the little demon in my mind telling me to just get on with it, why do I need to phase myself back into normal life. People’s lives have been on hold for long enough. Why am I prolonging it all?

The logical part of my mind knows that people understand that it will take time to get back to full swing. Nobody is putting any pressure on me, far from it. The only person putting pressure on me is me.

I’ve always been a people pleaser and I feel like I’m letting people down, like I’m dragging it out. I’m putting so much pressure on myself to bounce back. If I was giving myself advice I would tell myself to just stop it - to accept that this has made me a different person and that I need to allow myself time to begin to learn who that new person is.

Most importantly of all, I would tell myself to be kind to myself.

I need to take time and be kind to myself

I’ve tried a few times over the past few months to start writing again for my blog, Boobs behaving badly, but I felt like I didn’t really know what to say anymore. I lost my mojo a little bit. But as I write this I am doing something that I have never really done before. I’m taking some time out. Time out from being a mum, a wife, a daughter, a friend, an employee. I’m being me. For the first time in a long time I feel like I’m listening to my own advice! I allowed myself to just stop.

That’s the crux of it all really. Stopping. Thinking. Learning who I am again and listening to what I need. Taking time out and being kind to myself. It sounds so simple doesn’t it? I know it’s going to take time, probably a long time, but I’ll get there.