(Original title – The Journey From Platform Nine & Three Quarters)

It’s been a while. I’ve got a lot milling around in my head at the moment, some things up my sleeve, and some other things that I’m sitting on aside from haemorrhoids (yeah, I didn’t realise those would be a thing). Basically, I’ve been doing a lot of introspection and trying to figure out if the way that I’m coping with everything is actually a healthy way to cope. You see, I’ve never had cancer before, and I’m pretty sure there’s no rule book.

I’ll probably write one.

Anyways, treatments are treatments, my hair is still falling out, my eyebrows disappear bit by bit daily, I’m still tired and nauseous and generally feeling pretty crappy, but also really okay if that makes any sense at all. I don’t feel healthy but I feel well enough, and I’ve always been pretty good at separating out “wellness” from “healthfulness”. They’re two different concepts for me. Wellness is my ability to function at a subpar level, usually with a migraine or a headache or other pain or niggle and get through my daily life. Healthfulness is the actual feeling of health that I have, and I definitely do not have any sort of stock of that at the moment. It’s getting steadily better, but I only get maybe 2 or 3 days where I feel reasonably human and not at all like my boob is trying to kill me before fatigue and exhaustion and even a little nausea in the days before chemo is due sets in again.

Cancer still sucks, and I don’t think it’s going to suck any less any time soon either.

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about things I want to talk about or observations that I’m making about the Magical World of Cancer, and tonight I’ve decided I want to talk about the whole “just keep fighting” phrase that people keep pulling out. I am more than happy to talk to people about what I’m going through. I’m more than happy to answer any questions people have, no matter how invasive they might be. It’s kind of fun, and usually someone learns something new about cancer* that they didn’t before (*massive caveat of “Your Mileage May Vary”). I also don’t want my entire life to be defined by this bullshit mutiny my breast cells have decided to pull, but hey, whatever. I can find new topics to talk about later, right?

Back to my point.

The concept of “fighting cancer” and “just keep fighting” and “you can beat this” is complete and utter bullshit and, to me, definitely not helpful in any way except for stoking my eternal hate fire that fuels my very existence. There is no way for someone with cancer to fight cancer. It’s not possible. I could physically fight it, but I would be punching myself in the tit and 1) that would fucking hurt; 2) I would look fucking stupid; and 3) would probably actually do more damage than help.

(side note, would probably pay $5 to see someone punch themselves in the tit though)

What does fight cancer is drugs and therapies, and those are entirely out of the cancer patients’ hands. Something that I did very early on was make the decision to not research anything, and to give myself over to my medical care team to guide treatment. I am not an oncologist, it is not my job to waste my time researching things that I don’t understand, and I could be using my time more wisely. I decided at my very first appointment that my life is now out of my hands. I will do what I can to support my health and get through treatment, and leave it to the professionals to research and decide what treatment options are best for me.

And it was the best decision I have ever made in my entire life.

I loathe not being in control of my own life, but I am loving the freedom of not having to stress about whether a different type of chemo is more suitable, about whether or not radiation would come before surgery, about anything at all. I show up to my oncology appointment the day before chemo, I get my blood taken, and I show up to chemo the next day. I don’t have to worry about anything other than getting to the Peter Mac on time, managing my (thankfully very minimal) side effects, and resting as much as possible afterwards. I’m not going to lie, being open and upfront about what I’m going through does mean that my narrative is basically a 24/7 talkback cancer show. But it’s not up to me to be all aggressive about the options out there. A team of medical professionals are making the best collaborative decisions about my treatment and care, they’re keeping me informed, I have an opinion that I’m not afraid to express when needed, and I don’t sweat the big stuff. That’s not for me.

I don’t want to spent my time worrying about why I’m not eligible for that clinical trial, or why there’s no immunotherapy drugs for my type of tit mutancy, or why targeted hormone therapies aren’t being administered now, or why another type of cancer has different treatments and why they can’t apply to my boob.

I just find it so weird that people get so hung up on “fighting” it. I literally cannot control what the cells in my body are doing, because if I could, do you think that I would have let them riot like this in the first place? It’s like the Game of Thrones – you win, or you die.

And even if I do “beat” cancer, it never really goes away. The Ghosts of Cancers Past will haunt me for the rest of my life. There will always be more scans, more appointments, more tests. If you’re unlucky, reoccurrences or metastasis. If you’re super unlucky, you’re Ned Stark and your cancer is Joffrey Baratheon beheading you in public because that’s just how cancer rolls.

Please don’t tell me to keep fighting – I am already doing everything I can that’s available to me.

The rest is up to my mutant cells to start fucking behaving.

However, if you think a letter writing campaign will aid my cancer efforts, feel free to address to the following:

Judas Tit
Right Breast, Upper Outer Quadrant
Spiculated Mass GTFO