Page 175 - She's One Crazy Lady!

Cancer does, indeed, need to be talked about.”
I felt a little lost for words, which is most unusual for me, but could
begin to understand where he was coming from. All the added notes and comments from the parents and Headteachers included with their replies came to mind. Is that why they were offloading? It was becoming apparent that yes, people did need to talk about cancer. How would our project help? I recalled how many people came up to me and whisper,
“You’ve got the Big ‘C’ then? How are you? You look well, considering...” Considering what? What did they expect me to look like?
“What does it feel like to be diagnosed?”
“How did they tell you?”
“How did you react?”
“How did they know you’d got cancer?”
So many questions. All these needed to be explained and discussed
and I tried, as best I could, to answer their questions openly and honestly, knowing they craved more information and more facts. There were many stories from these people too – stories that possibly had been ‘locked away’ for years – stories of their encounters with cancer.
Why wasn’t it being talked about though?
Yes, I’d got cancer. My Dad had Alzheimers; he had heart problems; Mum’s sight was failing; she’d had a stroke. Cancer, to me, resembled a car that is not always reliable; if something goes wrong the car needs to go to a garage for a mechanic to sort it out – like we have to be seen by a ‘medical mechanic’ to get us up and running again. To me, cancer was just one of hundreds of reasons why the human body lets you down at times. It seemed so natural to want to talk about it, as you do with strokes, Alzheimers, blindness and all the other ailments we have to endure. Or were people not talking enough about these? I wasn’t being naïve, for I knew that cancer was a scary and a very frightening word, and I knew cancer had affected so
many people’s lives – some with
negative outcomes. It felt natural
to talk openly – it was something,
as a teacher, that we encouraged
our children to do if something was
troubling them. I felt positive – I’d
put my trust into ‘my mechanics’ –
my GP, the Breast Team at KGH,
and now the nurses and doctors who
were pumping strong chemotherapy
drugs into me.
Although I felt somewhat humbled by David’s words, I also felt a little worried about the implications of what could happen next. What had we started? The meeting was one of
“You’ve got the Big ‘C’ then? How are you? You look well, considering...” Considering what? What did they expect me to look like? ”
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