
Putting My Broken Soul Back Together
The thing that frightens me the most is that I am not scared of dying. I do not mean I want my life to end, and certainly not anytime soon – I still want to travel through Africa and learn bachata and get a promotion and write a novel and fall in love (one last time!). I have accomplished so much in these past few years before, during and after my diagnosis and treatment. I have, however, come to terms with the fact that I may not ever have biological children, I may not get married, cancer may come back (and statistically once you’ve had it, you’re a more likely candidate for recurrence). But a move towards a more mindful approach to life has helped me to not panic about the future. Not in an apathetic manner, but that is a fine balance.
I have always searched for reason: it’s in my character, a logical approach to everything. But when the doctors couldn’t give any explanation, not even a tiny hint as to “why” … it threw me off. I was 28 years old, travelling the world, in love, following a career path I loved, and turning heads for a promotion. I questioned everything – was it because I had lived in Indonesia, was it because I ate too many Timtams, drank too much, had too many stars-and-tomato-sauce sandwiches growing up, did I spend too much time in the sun, or not enough time in the sun, was it because I had been on the pill for 10 years, or because I had only dated smokers with a trail of second hand smoke in their wake… for this there is no reason, or at least not one I will ever come to know.
I struggled the worst once my treatment was over. I had no direction, I had no understanding, I had no life left. I was taking hormones that threw me into the depths of depression, then angered me in the simplest of upsets. I had lost control – I was throwing cakes across the kitchen because the icing wouldn’t set, and I was pulling over my car sobbing hysterically when someone cut in front of me on the highway. I was utterly lost, and no one could possibly understand. To everyone else, I was cured. I struggled to find happiness and meaning. I felt like a stranger to myself. My soul had been broken. For lack of a better expression, I was dying to live.
But those broken pieces of my soul? Well, it turned out they weren’t lost forever. Because I started to recognize them. They were scattered all over the world. And I vowed that if they wouldn’t come to me, then I’d go and find them myself.
And I did. I moved across the world to London, and I was offered my dream job. Life started to fall back into some semblance of sense. Not everything, mind you. I was redefining myself, finding the old pieces of me and aligning them with this new me. I had to work around the lingering effects of chemo-brain while back in a job that depends on details. I was self-administering my monthly Zoladex alongside Tamoxifen tablets, and continuing to manage their combined side effects. I was in a new country with a new healthcare system that I had to put all my trust into. I now had a new “pre-existing condition” that I had to mention on documents and insurance forms. I had left behind my family and friends. And I was working out the reasons again – why was I doing this, what was the point, what did I want, who was I now?
I remember blurting out at the pub to my closest work friend that I’d had cancer – I felt like it was a part of me, a part of my story, and I didn’t know how to define myself without that chapter.
Whenever I met new people, I was caught up in how I could gently introduce the fact that I HAD CANCER into the conversation without shocking them, as I thought that was my normal, that was me, that they couldn’t possibly understand me without knowing this crucial fact. This began to fade as I lived more life between me and cancer, as I realized I was more than a diagnosis or an illness, or even just one experience.
Photo courtesy of Unsplash.
Dana was diagnosed with breast cancer at 28 years old, promptly moved home from Indonesia to Australia, and kicked cancers butt. She sees the whole ordeal as a blessing in disguise, as without it she would not be the person she is today.