A little update from the grey area!

 

Firstly appologies: Its much harder to keep up with this blog now than it was beofore, mainly because I have become an expert at compartmentalising my condition.

 Putting my cancer diagnosis away in a little box and only allowing it out when treatment or scans inevitable roll around again. Call it survival mode, call it PTSD...I call it a coping mechanism that helps me get out of bed in the morning. 

The thing with cancer is we are told that it is this big dramatic thing that blows up your life and you make it out the other side or you dont. (and unfortunatly it can be like that) But what about the cancer that just keeps on coming (back) not in a big dramatic way, more like a this is your life now kinda way. I feel like every time I update my blog people are expecting big news: You're cured or your terminal....but I am very much just here in the very shady area between the two. 

It's one of the main reasons I wanted to document my experiences with bladder cancer, to show that this kind of  cancer can involve.  Learning to live with your diagnosis and everything that comes with it. Don't get me wrong, I am so incredibly grateful for that on so many levels, but it is also a bit of a constant head fuck and I do think that you kind of have to find a way of dealing with it just so you dont become completly all consumed by it.  

I have my treatment and then I move on with my life until the next letter hits the mat and the creeping anxiety starts about the next round of check-ups and scans. Then I either celebrate an all clear and live my life for the next 6 months or I have a recurance and I have surgery and then I get on with my life for the next few months beofre treatmnet rolls around again, and again...its the cancer lifecycle and yeah its pretty exhausting. 

Sometimes I worry I've become so good at living this double life that I find myself questioning why I'm struggling to get out of bed in the morning or why I'm suddenly out of breath from running up the stairs: and then I remember that my last treatment was less than a week ago and I should probably just slow down a little bit!

We were on holiday in the summer and I was having some pain in my abdomen, panicking that we were away from home and my doctors. I lay in bed in a half awake fog for a good 20 minutes panicking before forcing mysekf awake to get up and go to the toilet; seconds later it hit me that it was pain from my surgical site and it was all very normal considering surgery had been less than two weeks before, I took some paracetamol and got back to enjoying the holiday. 

I know the cycle can't and won't last forever, especially because I have almost maxed out the amount of BCG treatments that I can have. It will be 30 in total by the time i'm done, I think!? although I have very genuinly lost count at this point. (some people dont tollerate more than 3!)

I think I have 3 left and then I don't know what will happen, I could hope for a miracle and the last 3 could be the ones that finally get it for good, or I could spiral and think about all the other stuff that I know might be next. But I don't play that game anymore...

Instead I am focusing on the one step infront of me: my next cystoscopy in the morning and then we will take it from there.... 

Thanks for reading, 

Katie :)