Can anyone come up with a different term than “survivor”? It’s one of those terms that is like nails on a blackboard to me. I am “surviving”. The only way I would consider myself a survivor would be if I died of something else!!! I am 4 years down the line from original diagnosis and treatment but still on Arimidex. Is that considered a survivor? I don’t know if there are cancer cells floating around just waiting to get fed some estrogen! What happens after I stop the Arimidex and the adrenals start producing the hormone that my body can turn into estrogen?
I hear you - it irks me too! My big thing is it focuses on the cancer - whatever happened to the rest of me? I am, I have decided, living. Not ‘just’ surviving - there’s a whole lot out there to see and do.
Years ago I saw a TV show, the Virginian or something like that. There was a young cowboy that was dying from something (shows how good the storyline was!), but he sang a song that i have never forgotten:
What’s the use of living if you can’t have any fun?
What’s the use of loving if you can’t love anyone?
Life is for living, and I’m all for giving it a try.
oh quisie i love that songxxxxxx it should be our signature for BCC
lots of love
Alisonxxx
I read a quote not long after my diagnosis which I really liked:
‘I’ve got breast cancer, but it hasn’t got me!’
Appeals to my fighting spirit.
Jacki xx
Maybe breast cancer Warrior is more appropriate? we are still engaged in an active life where our bodies, if not our minds or our medical team are maintaining a struggle to gain or keep the upper hand, most of us bear scars, yet survival implies we have undergone some disaster whilst in fact we have passed thru or are still living an encounter with cancer as another step or chapter in our lives.
If you feel this implies your body or your life is a battleground and that doesn’t appeal, how about Butterflies?
There we were, going about our lives, progressing from age to age, like so many caterpillars, taking abundance and long life for granted, when we became as though frozen in time by a diagnosis! We curled up into the smallest and most resistant shape we could find and stayed very still, at moments even unconscious, whilst our bodies were surgically remodelled and our insides turned into a chemical soup!
Then one day, miraculously, we emerged from the medical process, shakily at first, discovered it was possible to function, though differently, more intensely, with colours and scents and sensations strangely more colourful than before, though maybe each more shortlived than before, joyful to feel the heat of the sun and take flights of fancy that we might live a little more of our natural span, whatever that may be. And have you noticed how well butterflies can fly even with part of their beautiful wings surgically removed by the razorsharp beak of a predator? Is this LIfe after Life? I think the process of living with cancer and its treatments is a constant metamorphosis and I’d rather think caterpillar-butterfly than tadpole-frog!
Jenny xx
Jenny
Lovely last paragraph… It’s early morning and Ihave just taken a short walk around the garden in the sun … and oh how beautiful it is… all our senses are heightened at this time and if we can just take a deep breath and breathe in that wonderful thing around us…
Wisdens
Yep! I’m similar stage in the proceedings as you Frobbi and feel the same about it. Saying “I’m in remission” seems to make people think you’re being over dramatic. Essentially people would like not to have to think about cancer so if they think you are cured they won’t have to. Not that I want to think about it much either but it would be nice if it was acknowledged that there was some difficulty in living with the possibility of cancer returning.
I like your comments about how you feel about stopping Arimidex! I’m sur lots of others will feel the same! x