An Unpredictable Life

2. Who Am I?

Who Am I?

2

Let's start with the basics, shall we?

When you find out what kind of treatment you are most likely to respond to there is only really one question that runs through your mind…Who am I to deserve this?

It seems like the question for someone with a negative outlook I know, but finding out you have cancer isn't an everyday thing. Suddenly being told that your life is going to change, so much so that you can't see a future for yourself, or whether there is a future ahead of you or not… It's such an uncertain stage of your life that you deserve to take a minute to stop and think 'what the hell happened?'. But really, it happens to lots of different people.

It's more common than most people think. I know that once my treatment started and everyone I knew had been told what I was going to go through, I began to hear of lots of people who had cancer, in one form or another. Old people, young people, men, women, children; it seemed that everyone had it. Even people who I knew, had either had it before or had just discovered they had it. It seemed like I had infected everyone around me. But once I was actually in the ward I realised that it wasn't just about me.

Sometimes because I was going in for treatment they would have to move people to other wards just so that I could get a bed, because my treatment was so intense that I was always put into a private room with its own bathroom. There were times when I'd actually have to wait in the family room for maybe four hours until the person who was still in it was moved. It would be emptied out and the room was cleaned. They couldn't risk me getting an infection from someone else or from a shared bathroom. Especially when my Hickman line became infected; it wasn't safe for me to be around other people.

Visitors had to wash their hands with a special alcohol hand wash before coming into my room, and again after leaving. It was only once I had settled into the routine of going for treatment for a week, coming home for the weekend or a few days and going back in again, that my mind settled down.

Instead of focusing on what I had done wrong to deserve this I thought of other things. Like the fact that I had the chance to make friends with the doctors and nurses whom I would never had met if I hadn't had to get treatment. Or the fact that I got to meet so many people who had similar illnesses and interests, that I could talk to when I needed a friend. Just knowing that I could help other people through their treatment, because of the problems I had with mine helped me understand so many things just that little bit better.

Not only did the experience help me in my social life, but it also helped me with my school work. I now had new things to write about for personal experiences in English; I could now understand Biology much better. How the blood worked, why things did what they did, why we need certain things to survive. I now had a better understanding of myself.

But most importantly I had learned who I was. I was able to realise my abilities quicker, whether I could or couldn't do something. I was able to understand why I was or wasn't able to do something. But most of all I was able to communicate my emotions on a much deeper level.

Although sometimes it did prove to be a burden, like bursting into tears at school because I was unable to perform a test to my regular standard. Or when I felt like my head was about to explode from all the questions I was being asked that I didn't have answers to. In a way it was a relief as well as a burden, because after my transplant I was unable to cry for a long time. I still felt sad and wanted to cry, but instead of crying I'd sit and be frustrated with myself for NOT crying. It was as if I was hollow inside and I almost wondered if I could express any feeling the same again.