My First Blog

Ah, my very first blog. I'm just a normal girl who had a normal life.....when Blam! Like a sledgehammer out of the blue came my cancer diagnosis. I remember the consultant saying things twice, "Did you hear me, do you understand what I'm saying?" "Yes, I heard you". I stared at the floor, thinking "I've seen the TV shows, the devastating scene in the film, I know how to react" But I just felt numb, and walked out and I don't even remember if I cried. I don't think I did. Two weeks later, my womb and ovaries were removed, and along with them my chance of a having my very own family. Our chance, by which I mean myself and my husband. Only two months previously we had been planning IVF and maybe our baby. How do you react to that?
Well, I reacted badly. I wept for days on end, at least every day for the next 6 months. I avoided seeing people. I still sometimes avoid seeing people (3 years on). I got angry, I got depressed, I felt it was pointless carrying on but didn't know how to stop carrying on. I couldn't go on like that. How could I face my new life? How could I talk to my old friends who were sympathetic but didn't know what to say? I didn't want to talk about it, couldn't talk about it, yet wanted to talk about it. I found a counsellor through work. After a couple of sessions, I found out he was being made redundant. I didn't know what to say anyway, after saying my life is ruined, I didn't know what else to say. Whatever he said, it wouldn't change things anyway. What was the point of putting myself through the experience again and again every week when it just made me upset and feel worse?
This blog is going to be an ongoing compilation of all the things I have done to get through my feelings and the whole cancer experience.  Many things have helped. If I could talk to the me that was crying on the stairs at work 3 years ago and say "you will feel better, I promise", the me on the stairs probably wouldn't have listened, let alone believed me.  I don't always feel better, but I do a lot of the time. I think it's worth recording the things that have helped in the hope that some of them may help someone else.