So yeah, I'm watching Channel 4's documentary 'Curing Cancer' and well well, this is familiar. Reflecting back to where I was this time just three years ago is nothing less than surreal.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing; almost as wonderful as time - and they say that time heals all wounds.
This time three years ago I was in the horrible stage between treatment and remission - unsure whether I would remain a habitant of Sick Kids Ward 2, or whether I would regain my freedom, my life and my health..to an extent. And to my absolute delight, on December 21st 2011, I found out I was being awarded with the latter.
So now I am two years and ten months in remission with two years and two months remaining before I am 'cured' of Hodgkins Lymphoma. Incredible, isn't it? I can't begin to express how lucky I am.
On March 9th & 10th 2011 I thought I would die. I was naive enough to assume that Cancer means baldness followed by death; yet here I am reflecting on it as one of the best things that has ever happened to me.
Cancer forces you to grow up far too early and make decisions that no 15 year old should have to make and it puts you through hell with chemo and radio and scans and drugs and sickness and spending more time in hospital with your nurses, than at home with your family.
But it also forces you to have a positive outlook on almost everything. Life, health and time are such blessings and you no longer take that for granted. I met incredible people and I had amazing experiences.
One of my best Cancer friends was taken from us in February. Michaela was one of the most inspirational, positive, hilarious and loveliest people I have ever had the pleasure of befriending. She took everything in her stride and could find the funny side to everything to do with cancer. Her sense of tumour should be taken as a gospel and it's people like her that make the positives of my Cancer story and make me reflect on the past three years so positively.
Reflecting on my roller-coaster of experiences, I don't believe it happened to me. The hospital appointments and the weight loss and the hair loss, then the weight gain and the chemo and the radio and being hungry all day every day then not eating for days on end; the shingles and living in isolation and the infection risks - the sympathy! But also the nurses and the friends and the charities, the free Grumpy and the support and trips to Centre Parcs and Lapland and the medical knowledge and the excessive free time to watch TV and films.
It feels like a different life. I am almost a third of my way through my University degree, looking up international universities to study at next year and I have the most incredible friends and the best boyfriend and my life is so bloody normal, whilst at the same time it's just so far from normal.
So, Cancer is shit.
But, Cancer is great.
