It has taken me many years to get to this point where it has become completely clear that I need to begin to tell my cancer story more thoroughly. I have an outline loosely based on my journals from the earlier years of facing the diagnosis, reacting to it, responding, & accepting diagnosis & eventual treatment. A lot of events profound, humorous, fearful and fearless happened in between. I am going to attempt to chronicle these significant life changing and altering events to hopefully process my experience, and perhaps influence or even inspire many. I don’t think fighting cancer is a boring topic, but perhaps it is a bold move on my part to presume I have an audience for my story. If anything, It will be a lasting legacy of insight, courage, inspiration, and perseverance I have drawn from my life’s experience of dealing with and living with ovarian cancer.
I am not sure how I can articulate such profound moments as seeing a friend react to my allergic reaction to carbo platinum, and understanding deeply and sorrowfully in a flash that my cancer hurts others near to me. I was so quick to use humor to deal with my own internal horror that my body was shutting down, and dramatic allergic reactions were infiltrating my systems, and the infused Benadryl made me high and loopy, so the humor just poured from me like a drunken individual in a state of protest.
I have flashback moments when I remember using my dark cancer humor to crack a joke about the doctors trying to “kill me” while killing the cancer. Maybe it was all too much for my sweet friend to bear, but suddenly the team of doctors & nurses tending to my allergic reaction were moved to gather around her (once I was stable, off course) and minister to her heart ache moment of witnessing my allergic vulnerability to the cancer fighting drug. I am not sure if I am describing this well, but the reflection of it had a deep impact on me, and something in me shifted after that. I became mindful of my serious reality, and how it not only was affecting me, but those around me. Her reaction deeply endeared this friend to me, and forged an even deeper bond since that shared moment.
