Up Close and Personal on Ovarian Cancer- A June Follow Up to the March Post Up Close and Personal on Ovarian Cancer- A June Follow Up to the March Post
When I post, I try to write from a particular cultural location as a person of Africa descent with an English Jamaican national identity with residency in the UK. Whilst I write from my own experience, I try to be inclusive and not to restrict the meaning or value of my Postings to a single dimension of an individual experience. My postings are written as if I am speaking them. Like my Jamaican folk s/hero Anansi, I hope to spin a tale that has multiple meanings depending on the reader’s identification with the text that enables it to speak to multiple experiences.
My Posting Special in March on Ovarian and Prostate Cancer Awareness Month was written in that vein. I wanted to offer a hope filled contribution to the varied thoughts and feelings experienced by those of us with cancer, those of us without, those of us fearful of contracting it, those of us with friends and family affected by cancer and those of us who have lost family or friends to the disease. I deliberately did not want to offer a specific view, as I wanted to reach everyone and not just some. Hence whilst I wrote from a personal standpoint, it was not directly personal. Now is the time to be up close and personal and to "out" myself. I was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in November 2008 after an initial diagnosis of wind and then irritable bowel syndrome. The emotional shock of the unanticipated news was compounded by the matter of fact way I was informed of my illness. My pulmonary embolism (blood clots on the lungs) prevented a good cry at the time, as my chest hurt. Relieved that I hadn’t died of a stroke or a heart attack caused by the DVT, I was further relieved that it only affected a part of me that I could live without and that my vital organs were clear.
With abdominal surgery last December and subsequent months of chemotherapy, I am now medically in the clear as I will ever be. Currently I am recovering from the effects of the chemotherapy and getting my health back on track through a slow return to my fitness centre. Spending time in the gym, swimming pool and sauna is very therapeutic physically and emotionally. The warmer weather is an encouragement to resume my walks on the promenade by the sea, with jogging hopefully just a few improved breaths away. I am also countering the toxic effects of the treatment with vitamins and herbal supplements, aware that medically there is little guidance on an organised and informed recovery. I still find it difficult to believe that chemotherapy is an accepted treatment when it makes one more sick than the underlying illness. Telling people that I had recovered from surgery but was now sick not from cancer but made deliberately ill by the prescribed medication was bizarre.
My illness was mainly known to only friends and family who amply supported me emotionally and otherwise, in my sickness as they did, in my health. I never felt the need to confide in strangers or support groups and I valued accurate information on my condition. I am rather laid back by nature and this didn’t change significantly during my sickness. I had decided that I was not going to enter battle mode to fight the disease as I couldn’t be at war with myself. Whilst the cancer cells were an unwelcomed addition to my body they were still part of me and within my love for myself. Nor did I feel I was a victim or even now a survivor of cancer. I can see the therapeutic value of these identifiers for some but I prefer others. There has been so much in my life where I could have been a specific victim of this or a particular survivor of that. I do not see cancer as having any pre-eminence. It is one of many significant milestones on my journey. Life is more than survival, the quality is paramount and in the final analysis I am more than my illness, my ethnicity, my sexual orientation, my gender, my class. I am all these things and more.
On hearing my diagnosis I immediately thought my condition was terminal. Thankfully that thought was fleeting and did not return. I have conversed with God and I have been in a place where I have had balance in facing my medical realities. I may relapse but I will not be anxious in advance or worry about a premature death. I will go when I have fulfilled my journey with the Holy Spirit, who thoughtfully has provided the following reassuring words for those days when I feel a little fragile. And Jesus said…do not worry about your life…or about your body…Matt. 6:25. My existence in this temporal form has always been predicated on a view of the Divine, as my advocate. Yes God could have made me a boy but then I would have had a prostate to worry about or possibly chest cancer. As a child I memorised a text from my very first Bible and it still holds true.
The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms.
Deut. 33:27 KJV
Meanwhile, I will regain my health and strength and God willing, I will continue my ministry as there is much to do.
Rev Caroline Redfearn © blackpeoplesministries.com 2009