While there is a physical element of dealing with cancer, the treatments, the surgery, the radiation etc. There is a side to it that I feel is neglected. The emotional and the mental challenges. Being thrown into treatment during my early stage diagnosis I kinda felt like a cat being thrown into a bathtub full of water. Scrambling to get the heck out the water as soon as I could and then standing there panting ringing wet and traumatized as I was told all that I was feeling was temporary, things would get better and that I’d find my “new normal”. I felt myself slowly blink back in response. New Normal. Normal. New. Sigh.
The thoughts, the feelings, the memories of treatment don’t disappear. They are ingrained and embedded inside us. Impossible to separate from as much as we struggle, as much as we strive to move past it. And that’s why I hate breast cancer awareness month. It puts a pretty package on an ugly reality. Dousing appliances, cars, and gadgetry in pepto bismol colored pink packaging with strategically placed pink ribbons while promising to donate 5 to 10% of proceeds towards breast cancer is theft at best and capitalizing on cancer that claims the lives of 45,000 women/men in the United States at worst for profit. 600,000 men and women die from Metastatic breast cancer around the globe yearly. Less than 5 percent of all donations toward breast cancer as a whole benefit metastatic breast cancer, the breast cancer that kills. So emotionally breast cancer awareness month is hard for me. I’ll never see a dime benefit nor will the other women like me living with this disease even as I’m asked at the checkout counter to donate all month long.
On our bodies hidden beneath our clothes lives a road map of scars. Some visible to our doctors as we once again disrobe, some hidden deep inside. These things take their toll. They wreak their havoc. Despite all of these things there is a part of us that wants to celebrate the milestones. Mile markers showing us just how far we have traveled as we glance back and remember.
For me personally part of my emotional struggle is with flashbacks and panic attacks. All the elements of dealing cancer can create a perfect storm and we feel like a buoy being tossed about at sea. Even tho they can take a beating in choppy seas, Buoys always right themselves again. Overtime I’ve been able to work through some of the baggage and scars but there are times it’s too much for me to deal with on my own, and that’s where some palliative medications have helped as well as learning to open up to people I trust when I’m going through rough patches. Learning about Metastatic breast cancer and coming to grips with acceptance of my diagnosis was a big step in being able to move forward emotionally.
In the month of October let’s remember those who were emotionally bludgeoned during treatments for early stage cancer and every day live with the fear it will return and now struggle to find new footing on the other side. And let’s remember the women in the metastatic community, like me, who live everyday blindfolded on the edge of a sword that’s waiting to dash them to…ribbons.
#dontignorestage4 #MBCthecancerthatkills
Life and Irises 
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