The 'cancerverse'

For the last three years, I have been living in a sub-set of the real world. I call it the 'cancerverse'. It's where one day your universe becomes inverted, shrunken, myopic and at times, completely claustrophobic. Yesterday I read a fact, for example, that the median survival time in months for someone in my position (a Triple Negative Breast Cancer sufferer who went on to experience two breast cancer tumours in the brain and then had Whole Brain Radiotherapy) is four to six months. Scary. You can live a so-called 'normal life' and forget the possibility of death until you get an unusual symptom, a scan date or news of a friend who has just been diagnosed, or who is going through a tough time. Any incident of change thrusts you back into the 'cancerverse'.

So how do you break out? The 'cancerverse' can be an oppressive place, but it is no match for love, for prayer or for hope. A friend told me yesterday that she goes out for lunch every day she's not in chemo. Another friend is travelling, and relishing each new experience, being surrounded by nature. A kind gesture, a thoughtful card, a word of encouragement, the warmth of someone praying for you. All these things seek to liberate, to enlighten and to celebrate the joy of being alive. So, if you know someone who is in the 'cancerverse', please give them the greatest of gifts. Give them hope.