On Wednesday, 19th May 2010 I was told I had cancer. Specifically, myeloma which is a form of cancer of the blood. It is a type of bone marrow cancer arising from plasma cells, which are normally found in the bone marrow. It is very rare for people under 40 and more of an “older” person’s cancer where average age of diagnosis is 71 although in recent years this has gone down to 60.
When cancer was being handed out to unfortunates like myself, someone clearly recognised that “I don’t do common!” Don’t worry, it’s not catching so you can still talk and stand next to me even give me a hug if you really want to – it is just one of those things. Cancer doesn’t really give a sh*t like that.
Typical me, I bitch about a pain in my back for weeks thinking it’s a slipped disc and it turns out to be a tumour pushing against my spinal cord. An old people’s one at that! What are the chances?!
It’s highly treatable but no “cure” as such and my prognosis is good – it just all depends on how successful the various treatments they throw at me are. Touch wood, so far so good. Radiotherapy, chemotherapy and stem cell transplants – bring it on!!
No point in frightening yourself by Googling myeloma – it’s pretty scary stuff and a lot of stuff online is pretty old. I have given up comparing myself to other cancer fighters and am just concentrating on myself, my treatments and what my medical team at UCH inform me. I do find it useful to hear about other people’s experiences but ultimately I am concentrating on me and my treatments given the complexities of this disease.
Understandably I was pretty devastated when I was told of my cancer – it’s not every day you get told you have a life threatening and possible life limiting disease – especially when my life was pretty good up until then. I’m not really sure how to describe the feeling. It’s possibly like standing on a beautiful rug that is your life and that rug being pulled from under your feet all of a sudden; it’s perhaps like your life being a beautiful canvas painting and someone kicking a dirty great big hole in it or to coin a phrase, someone p*ssing on your parade.
Anyways, no point in getting too downbeat as it doesn’t really solve anything and I know that rugs can be straightened out, canvas paintings repaired and parades re-scheduled for a sunny day.
I have been brought up to get on with it and I may whinge a bit and have a bit of a moan but whatever I need to do, it gets done. And more often than not it does – however randomly I get there!
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