Alice… what's the matter?

I started this blog as a way of processing my discovery that at the age of 38, I had developed breast cancer. I’m not the youngest of even my friends or family to have had it, nevertheless it was a shock.

I decided I wanted to deal with it by writing, because I’d always kept a diary and written poetry when I was younger. That allowed me to spend the time thinking about what I was dealing with in more depth and with less panic than I otherwise might have done. So, mixing my love of poetry and song lyrics with my need to talk about what was happening, I created “Alice, what’s the matter?”.

A lumpectomy, 8 rounds of chemo and a BRCA genetic test later, I got a double mastectomy and some new boobs. I got my ovaries removed a few years later as well, because I have the BRCA2 gene mutation, which means I have a much higher risk of ovarian cancer if I leave my hormones to do their thing.

After my op, I used redundancy money to do some travelling in the form of a number of trips, each with different friends in 2013. I also got involved in fundraising and admin tasks for a charity, Keeping Abreast, and then with 4 online twitter friends, set up @bccww (Breast Cancer Chat World Wide) in 2014. It was a wonderful support network for me and even now the lovely group of people I met in the process are busy supporting so many others.

I recovered from chemo and got used to a new normal of weirdly swollen ankles, and random aches and pains. I was (and am) still hugely happy to be here. Everyone is different, but it’s common for people to only truly get a chance to process everything after it’s supposedly all over. Be kind to yourself, even (or especially) if you have some unexpectedly difficult days.

My Mum’s cancer returned though and she went through another round of chemo which took an enormous toll on her. I felt keenly that time was emotionally much much harder to see her suffering than it had been to get through my own illness, because I felt so powerless, but at least I was able to understand a little of what she was going through in her treatment.

We lost her to metastatic cancer in May 2015. We all miss her every day.

It’s now 10 years since she died, and when my gadgets or social media accounts do that thing of “look what you were doing then” and show me my pictures from years ago, I still look at my photos of her smiling face and think “I could be telling you about this”.

She used to have an uncanny knack of calling me on the phone just as I was thinking about her.

These days I’m focused on new challenges and new experiences to keep my brain busy. I’m now part of a busy community and volunteering for lots of things that put my skills to good use.

Alice
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