Long time no blog - have been having vile time chez the FauxSurreyHousehold. My little sister, the beautiful bouncy baby who was my 5th birthday present, has had breast cancer. No pretty pictures for this post as none are apt. She is far too young for something like this (43) and whilst all has gone as well as it could physically, emotionally she is wrecked. They managed to remove all the cancer (when I say all, there were 2 tumours - more cancer than breast) with a full mastectomy and luckily there is no need for chemo or radiotherapy but the poor girl is sledgehammered by this. She feels violated, butchered; almost abused. She even genuinely considered not having the surgery as the thought of what was about to be "done" to her was too much to bear. She understood it was the knife or death but that didn't help. Unlike Sharon Osbourne, for my sister the removal of a breast was NOT a no brainer.
There is no gentic cancer in our family. Her lifestyle suggests she should live to 120 disease free. She runs 7km daily and does half marathons for fun, she has never smoked, barely drinks (unlike me...) is almost a vegetarian, and is incredibly active - she goes diving & kite surfing when on holiday. It just shows you. Cancer really is no respecter of age or lifestyle.
Right now those closest to her, me included, are doing our level best to help her through this emotionally. The surgery is done (although I am NOT impressed by the private hosptial she went to - the surgery was on a Thursday evening & she was sent home in utter confusion & pain the next day - Friday PM less than 24 hours after MAJOR surgery - as they had another paying customer for the bed. It's a disgrace), and the prognosis is full (physical) recovery so the future should be on the horizon. BUT she cannot see past the cancer. She is still struggling to understand how this happened to her. She cannot get perspective. And before anyone reading this goes off about how lucky she is (I know in the context of what happened she IS lucky; incredibly lucky) life, hope and experience are all relative.
Today she is seeing a counsellor from the Helen Rollason cancer charity http://www.helenrollason.org.uk/ ; I really hope that this counsellor can help her find some perspective, some hope, something to look forward to.
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