Alright.
Let me start with this: it is extremely fucking weird to have cancer. Like, you know it's a thing people
get and you know there's a chance you could get it but when you hear the word being said to you you definitely don't think it can be accurate. It's weird to lose your hair. It's weird to have chemotherapy. It's weird to not have nipples anymore. Especially for Charlie - he thinks that parts real weird and he points at them a lot, unsure really of what to make of the Barbie-esque mound he's presented with.
So it is all really bloody weird, we understand that but overall, it was okay. Core biopsy? Okay. Needle aspiration? No idea but sure. Ultrasounds, mammograms, PET, CT, Bone scans? Bring them on. Boobs removed? Hmmmmm okay, I guess. Some nodes for safety? No problem (what is a node even?). Injecting radiation? Just the radiation I've missed not flying in covid. Pump my body full of poison? Seems intense but I guess okay. Hair falls out? It's just hair, right? Nausea and dizziness? Hey, who hasn't been.
But then all of a sudden one day I got really sad.
And then I cried.
I am a comedian and I am fiercely proud of that, like too proud coz its not that cool to anyone except other comedy writers. I constantly tell people about awards I've won for being funny, even if they don't care and ask me to stop. Even in the depths of chemo-hangover-hell I picked my stupid, sick-ass up and co-wrote a television pilot because comedy gives me life, and it defines me. But it has maybe defined me a little too well in recent times.
I think our bodies are amazing and we can really put them through a lot. Like injecting fluid that quite literally destroys their cells only to get up the next day and look after two kids. Women all over the world have reached out and told me about their stories. Single mums, pregnant women, women in abusive relationships, young women, old women... All united by a story of breast cancer, and how they lived their life around it like total badass boss bitches.
I was kinda prepared for the physical, I don't mind surgeries and scars so much, and was dealing with it pretty good (if I can be honest without sounding like an asshole). What I wasn't really ready for: the depression.
As a person who is not comfortable being vulnerable, I hate things like asking for help, relying on people and not doing things for myself. Turns out Cancer is super anti all those things. So after three cycles of me relying on people against my wishes, asking for help and generally being useless, I sunk deep in my heart and I sad-cried.
I cried because I had cancer. And I cried because I am having chemo. And I cried because I don't want any of those things and it's not fair.
And then I went to sleep and woke up the next day. I still had had cancer, I still had to have chemo, I still had the scars and pains and bald head: but I had made a little silent pact with myself in the night on my couch that I actually didn't have to feel okay about that all the time if I didn't want to. That I could do all the things I had to do, I could champion women and share their stories and guide them with mine but I did NOT have to say that it was okay that it was happening.
I am blessed in my life, my work, my support network, my Jesus. My happiness is real and my attitude is authentic. But I wanted to make sure I shared the down times too because I'd hate to know a woman was out there thinking "why doesn't she feel sad like I do about this?" I do. I promise. Moreso every treatment and every 'next thing'. But we will get through it together and we will be so much stronger on the other side <3
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