To understand how I found joy again after my cancer diagnosis and subsequent grueling year of treatment, you need to understand one important concept. I was a terrible cancer patient.
While social media was full of charity fundraisers, with cancer patients running marathons, swimming across the canal or knitting cute stuffed animals, I sulked in my bed. I didn’t dress for chemo or joke with the nurses, I showed up in my sweatpants and ignored everyone while I watched Netflix, scrolled Instagram and distanced myself. I haven’t cut out sugar, I haven’t kept a gratitude journal, and I certainly haven’t looked at the time as a blessing in disguise. I hated every second of it.
Cancer was an uninvited guest.
It had come into my beautiful home, thrown the furniture around, eaten my food and made a mess on the carpet and I wasn’t going to say thank you. When you’re in it, as the guy stomps around, you feel like this is all you’ll ever know. Your house will never be yours again. The walls you painted, the pictures you hung, the memories you made will forever be tainted by the gremlin currently screaming at the top of their lungs. It is all you can hear, see, smell and it consumes your every waking thought. The misery feels all-consuming. I struggled to find joy in my children, my partner, my friends, or any part of my life. The guy ruined it all. It spreads the stench and dirt, making everything feel dirty and different.
And then it was over. Chemotherapy was over, my breasts had been thrown into a hospital incinerator and I had been shot with laser beams (or radiotherapy as the right people called it). An emotionless surgeon in a drab hospital consultation room told me the guest was gone. But there was a catch. There was a key in it and he could return whenever he wanted. And if it did, it wouldn’t go away that time.
All around me I was told to rebuild that house. The core that had been so destroyed had to be made whole again, but I just didn’t know how. I saw flashes of potential. Days out with my kids, dinners with friends, holidays: they were all sparks of joy. But I could never forget the guy with his key. It eclipsed every sparkle, snuffed out the spark before I could turn it into a fire. I felt so hopeless and sad, as if pleasure was something I enjoyed before cancer but would now be forever tainted.
That was until the Spice Girls.
On June 1, 2019, I went with my best friends to see the Spice Girls on their reunion tour. I was tired, stressed, and still had side effects from the year of treatment I had undergone, but all of that was forgotten once the immortal words were sung.
‘I’ll tell you what I want, what I really want’ I cried for most of the concert and shouted the lyrics back to them. Dancing in my seat and in awe of the dancers, the fireworks, the costume changes and the incredible singing.
That night I learned something about joy. It is an act of rebellion. We’ve been told the idea that living a happy life is easy, but that’s not true. Pleasure comes and goes, sometimes in small doses, and you have to hold on to those moments – they will sustain you.
Choosing pleasure and joy means being courageous.
That night I realized I was still alive. I was alive and saw the Spice Girls and I was so happy that I had lived long enough for that to happen. Being alive meant I could be brave again and make the choice to embrace joy – chaos and all. Hugging the guest means that you no longer have to hide from it, but you have to grab him by the scruff of the neck and lock him in a room. Let it throw a tantrum, punch the walls, tear up the carpets, smash the windows – but only of that room. The rest of the house is yours and you can fill it with whatever gives you pleasure.
For me, that meant squeezing my babies tight, swimming in open water with friends, lying on my grandmother’s lap while she stroked my hair, eating food that no longer tasted like metal, reading books and laughing. Having good sex again, allowing intimacy and not caring that my body, my home, was forever changed. Having no breasts meant no more summer sweats, no more sports bras at the gym and no more being looked in the eye during conversations.
Sometimes I could still hear the guy’s screams, filling my brain with loud, chaotic fear until that was all I could think about. The antidote? The Spice Girls. As loud as you can until your lungs hurt. Until the screaming stops and all you can remember is the fun.
#Finding #Joy #Cancer #Treatment #Debzs #Story #Brook