One thing I like about the turn of a new year is the fresh feeling, like a new start, even if you have the life you've always wanted it always feels fresh and new. I hate "new year new me" and believe you should always set goals for yourself and always aim to be the best you can be throughout the year but a new year can be a new start, it's an unwritten rule that if you fucked up somewhere last year everyone forgets about it, that was last year everyone's over it just move on.
So more than anyone else I was ready for the fresh, new feeling and ready to move on from being a cancer patient, ready to move on from everything negative, swerve the self pity and move forwards and use my time being productive. The only problem was January meant one thing, the anniversary of my week in hospital, operations and biopsy's and the day I was diagnosed with cancer. Not a day goes by when I don't think about the day I was diagnosed, mainly because I was so out of it and so unwell I try to piece everything together, it was nothing like you see on the adverts, I was barely awake and wasn't even listening to the specialist who diagnosed me. It was a bit of a shambles, the nurse couldn't look at me and the so called expert stumbled his words out, not that he was being unprofessional imagine if you had to spend your Sunday morning telling a 20 year old and her parents she had cancer. Whenever you go through a traumatic event or lose someone they say the first year is always the hardest, too many firsts and it's true, how are you supposed to feel on the first anniversary of being diagnosed with cancer? During treatment, my uncle gave me a book to help me get through it all; Lance Armstrong's It's Not About The Bike. Forget about everything you know about Lance Armstrong and the doping scandal, this book is about a young man with a bright future ahead of him who though he had it all planned for it all to stop because of his cancer diagnosis and the torture he had to go through to be cured. This book is about a parents struggle to see their child go through cancer and knowing there's nothing they can do to help, just being there is enough. Sounds familiar doesn't it? I read it during treatment every day and I've read it again since because he speaks a lot about surviving cancer, something which deserves to be spoken about more, surviving cancer isn't being given the all clear, surviving cancer is getting back in to normal life without completely losing your soul during recovery. I found the book relatable and inspiring, I was inspired by his decision to celebrate the anniversary of his diagnosis carpe diem day as he calls it. "Kik calls my anniversary Carpe Diem Day. to remind us to always seize the moment. Every year we spend that day reminding ourselves to celebrate our existence. We remind ourselves that it's a myth to say that I beat cancer. The drugs beat cancer. The doctors beat cancer. I just survived it." If you're lucky enough to havr beaten cancer then you've been given a second chance, a second chance to live. There's nothing more torturous than survivors guilt especially with the recent deaths of legends Lemmy, David Bowie and Alan Rickman to cancer. These were all legends, inspiration to millions actually made something of their lives and are icons. Why should cancer kill them? Why did I get the so called good one? (this is the perfect time to remind everyone there's no good cancer stop saying there's good cancers). But for whatever reason if you've been given the all clear from cancer you've beaten the killer disease, there's a shit load of long term and short term effects that will be with us for the rest of our lives but we're alive, we still have to got to hospital at least once a week for pointless meetings with consultants and we still have days were we physically can't get out of bed but we're still breathing, we're survivors and that should be celebrated. Carpe Diem is a posh Yolo but we should seize the day, and remind ourselves we're alive. I used my fist Carpe Diem day by getting a tattoo, I've wanted a tattoo for as long as I could remember and it's important to me for my first tattoo to be something to be meaningful to me. So I got the date I was diagnosed with cancer with Carpe above it on one arm and the date I was given the all clear and Diem above that above the other. "Why do you want to be constantly reminded of the date you were diagnosed?" "you'll have that for the rest of your life" "that's a bit grim" "what if people ask what it means then you have to tell everyone". Believe me I've heard it all but nothing could me off, no matter what that date will torture me forever, one day I might feel comforted by it and remember that I'm alive or be reminded of the torture I've been through. Either way it's tattooed on my brain so why not tattoo it on my skin. My battle with cancer is a big part of me now and that can be a negative and positive thing, I'm now certain of what I want to do with my career and am taking the small steps towards that and I'm getting stronger every day, I need to be reminded I'm still alive and there's a good reason for this. It was just the other day I couldn't be bothered with the gym I was bored and tired and was ready to give in to self pity 'there's nothing I can do about exhaustion so why am I making myself more tired when I could be napping' I told myself but there was my tattoo with the date I was diagnosed and taken back to the day I couldn't listen to the consultant because I was so tired, I couldn't sit up attached to life saving blood. I was so weak but now one year later I was in the gym getting stronger moving up in weights, running faster and doing the best I could do. Every day I continue to struggle with the side effects of cancer and chemotherapy but and I might not see it but every day I'm getting stronger, I'm on the track to being just a normal human, this time last year I was probably in hospital attached to blood and given priority over everyone to be on a bed because I couldn't sit up, now I'm getting stronger and a survivor. No matter what stage you're at with your cancer journey I highly recommend reading Lance Armstrong: It's not about the bike, it's dead cheap as well probably because everyone thinks he's a fraud and not a survivor of cancer, I loved it and I'm dyslexic and hate reading.
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