Hi,
I wrote a blog about my cancer journey. Please, can you check it out and give me some feedback.
I wanted to help people.
Just read your blog and good on you for embarking on another step in getting back to normal. I don’t know where you’re at physically, but assuming you have finished treatment. The written word can sometimes sound worse than the spoken word. So please let me say that I am writing from a good heart with every intention of being positive. Because being positive is KING. Very early in the piece it seems to me that you are giving a lot of power to cancer. It will ‘try’ and steal so much from you - your life, your joy your strength, your career, your confidence, your marriage or relationships, even your house. Now that you are getting back to normal, tell it to ‘you know what’ off, tell it it’s getting nothing, and no, you won’t just settle for your life - you plan on keeping everything and it will get nothing. You had a break from life while you smashed that son of a ‘bleep’ and you are systematically reclaiming every single thing it took your focus off. It takes a while, but screw cancer - it gets nothing. Reclaim the power. No one needs to know you had cancer, or mumps or chicken pox or whatever on first meeting. No one has the right to know, no one will feel betrayed you didn’t tell them. Cancer is more scary for those who don’t have it. If I was having a coffee with you right now I would have said a million things, but writing them is difficult. In a nutshell I want to say. Put it behind you, focus on what you now want (which is some companionship /relationship. There are decent men in the world who are full of understanding. You have to kiss a lot of frogs though but don’t let it be the word ‘cancer’ that comes between you both . If it ever comes up in conversation when it would seem appropriate to say that you had once had it I’m sure it would be viewed a lot differently than telling someone as soon as you met. Even thinking about cancer gives it power and power is energy and NO, I refuse to give it an identity or waste my thoughts on it. I do what I have to do, treatment wise but that is me being cause over it. Relax. Focus on the kind of relationship you’d like and meet people, get to know them, and don’t give your past a single thought. You’ll know when you’re in the right relationship, and the right time to talk about the consequences of your treatment. Until then you are their focus. Yesterday is the past, live in the day and make your own tomorrow. Good luck, there’s a lot of fish out there.
Hello,
I think you needed to say all of that and get it off your chest if you have been thinking that way for a long time.
In addition I agree with Blondy about not telling your whole life story at your first meeting OR even before actually meeting them when you are just online.
You need to be in charge of your own happiness rather than have a man be responsible for it. I don’t know if I knew that before cancer or that cancer made me discover it. Anyway I think we all have a spark within us that we can kindle into happiness/positivity/optimism and it is up to us to do that. Then we need to nurture that spark until it glows and if our glow grows stronger we can share it with others - we can make them feel good and uplifted. We can guard against bringing them down with hurtful, unkind actions - even the truth is sometimes better left unsaid.
So I think your blog is cathartic and a form of therapy for you but seriously - put it behind you and try to get a bit more positivity into your life. Personally I would have to know someone rather well before I would consider bearing my soul to them and sharing intimate details about my health and emotions.
The truth is most people run a mile from bad news and when a casual acquaintance asks
" Oh hello, how are you?"
they do not want a list of your woes!!! What they want is for you to say
“Oh fine, thanks” or at the most “Well, I have been better - but don’t lets’ go there”
and then to move on and chat about work, family, the weather etc.