Alive and Kicking

It’s come around again quickly. Tomorrow, my cancer surveillance CT scan takes place. I currently have a nine month interval between scans. It’s been eleven and a half years since my first tumour was found. It’s been six years since my last tumour was removed. And it’s been five years since I’ve been under a surgeon’s knife. The type of cancer I had does not respond well to drugs. So the primary treatment is surgery. I hope and pray that I never have to be chopped open again. Each time they go in there is collateral damage. This, it seems, is inevitable, however beneficial the purpose of the procedure.

My abdomen was slit open four times in six years. The end result is that the tissues of my torso have been seriously weakened. Indeed, the lower part of an abdominal muscle was removed completely during emergency surgery seven years ago. As the tissues repaired after each of these procedures, I was left with lots of scar tissue and adhesions. These give me pain and loss of function in different parts of my torso. I know each of these sites intimately, especially when they nag at me in the small hours. The worst is my left side, where my ribs were cut open five years ago.

Ah, I hear you say, but you’re still alive. Not many of those who’ve had Stage 4 cancer are still with us. Don’t get me wrong, I am delighted to be amongst the lucky few. Learning to live with the unwanted results of surgery is a luxury, compared to the other option. But I don’t seem to keep this knowledge in the front of my mind. Like anyone else, I naturally try and do things as part of normal everyday life. But when my body brings me up short with a stab of pain, I have to step back. And say, no, I just can’t do this anymore.

It’s a challenge to accept your limitations. In my head, I’m still a younger man. T is doing her best to stop me injuring myself. She has taken on plenty of arduous tasks. And she acts like a conscience, telling me to stop if she sees me embarking on anything too foolhardy. I try my best. But from time to time, I do too much or I go too far, and I end up hurting myself. It’s not easy being a survivor.