Something I've learnt

Today was a sad day. The ceremony of Cora's life was beautiful. She would be chuffed and humbled by the whole thing and the packed chapel with standing room only. The stories and the photo presentation of her life filled in any blanks and completed the 'Story of Cora' for everyone who had arrived at different chapters in her life.  There are many tears being shed for her tonight and always and for Peter and Cora's families.

Something that I've learnt about the 'C' is that it takes away choices in your life.  You are dictated to by the 'C'. That's why I called my blog a "Reluctant Passenger" on a freight train, being forced to ride it. I feel like a naughty child being jammed in the seat going to a destination I just dont want to go to.

Preferred destination of choice

When I was given my diagnosis, I was told "this is what is going to happen.....". There was no negotiation in my treatment plan, no options given...just this is going to happen and when its going to happen, you will cancel your holiday.  To some degree it continues that way with my appointments booked for me as they discuss me in the Multidisciplinary meetings they have. For those of us who are somewhat 'control freaks' it stops you in your tracks.

On reflection of that, I thought about those before me with cancer diagnosis. While they were different diagnosis, different cancer - the thing in common is your choices are taken away. With other illnesses you are often given choices or options.

But something I've learnt, and now believe is that you can never judge someone on the decisions they make as they deal with their 'C'. Every journey is different and people deal with it differently. Especially if they have a terminal diagnosis, they are entitled to live their last days as they wish.

I know that my dear friend Cora, chose to work just as hard as she did until she could no longer. It fulfilled her and made her happy and probably took her mind off where she was heading. Noone will ever know if the outcome would have been different if she had stopped, it may have prolonged her life, or not! But it was the way she wanted to live and noone can criticise her for that.

A friend at bookclub - her husband was diagnosed with melanoma. He was given a short time to live. They decided to refuse treatment and live out their days together how they wanted to live.  At first hearing that story, I wondered why would they do that? Why wouldnt they try everything? - but I now understand. You get some choice back to live as you wish to.

A school mum's sister-in-law, fought the hardest fight I've heard of and is still fighting today. She was diagnosed with lung cancer which quickly spread, she stopped work, she tried new drug trial after trial, changed her diet, meditated, tried juicing, vitamin C injections, naturopathy and any complimentary option to her chemotherapy regime. She still lived her life and took several international trips. It seemed with everything she did, one tumour would disappear and then another tumour would pop up somewhere else. She is now taking time out to do all the simple things she loves while moving to palliative care.

Of these 4 stories, each made decisions to handle the 'C' in the best way they knew how.

My journey finds me reclaiming back my choices through changing some other things in my life, my perspective on things, my diet, doing meditation and understanding where I'm heading and why. I'm enjoying work/life balance and working 2 weeks in every 3.

Asking questions of the specialists and researching each stage gives me some power back to understand and have the knowledge of why they do things. It has found me in some scary mindsets sometimes, where the specialists hadnt given me the information earlier because they didnt want me to think negatively. But it enables me to deal with things the best way I know how to process it all. Then use that to try and focus on the positives.

But that's my journey - its not necessarily the right or wrong way! Just right for me :)