No - it ISN'T enough!

[Boz-pot]

When I was 15 I discovered I had cancer. I'm okay now, but I had a years worth of treatment so I missed a yearsworth of school, and naturally I had all the common side effects, such as losing my hair.

Being bald hit me quite hard, despite my mum saying (honestly) that she though it suited me because I have the right shape head for it. I remember reading that some types of chemotherapy cause your hair to change - colour, texture etc. I was worried about this because I'm blonde and was scared of going dark. Obviously there is nothing wrong with brown hair, but it's just not my colour. I told my best friend's mum once that I hoped my hair would grow back blonde and she replied: "Oh, I'm sure you'll just be glad to have hair again"

This sort of thing happens to me all the time. I say I'm depressed etc. and there are times when I've been suicidal and at there are always people who assume that just because I survived cancer I should be permanently glad to be alive. Well I'm sorry but it's just not the case. I've been prone to depression all my life and before I had cancer it was ok for me to be depressed (to a certain extent) but ever since I was ill it's like there's this unwritten law that if you survive a serious illness, you're no longer allowed to be unhappy.

For the last few years I've been having difficulty singing like I could before I was ill. Most people don't get cancer so the proportion of singers who get cancer is tiny. I asked what effect the chemotherapy would have on my voice and of course nobody knew the answer. It's only now, aged 22 that my voice has got to somewhere near how it used to be. Yet there are still people who say "At least you're alive", or "But aren't you glad to be alive". Well being alive isn't enough. If I couldn't sing anymore with no hope of recovery, K'd rather be dead. Harsh but true.

Luckily my family have never been like this.

[sepia]

What? You mean recovery isn't like those Lifetime Movie Specials where you were saved by A Mother's Love? Cancer doesn't automatically activate the Pollyanna Gene? How dare you challenge my black-and-white views of reality! For shame!

Seriously, you're right to post in this forum. People DO suck. No, it ISN'T enough to be alive when you know what you had and what you want. People have near-death experiences every day -- nearly getting hit by the sleep-deprived driver of an 18-wheeler seems to be a common example -- and these do NOT leave one with a permanent sense of gratitude for sheer survival. Maybe it's there for a while, but it fades. Life goes on. You cannot be expected to permanently live in some particular moment of relief and gratitude.

I'm glad your vocal work has brought you back to the general level you had achieved before cancer took over your life. Even if you haven't recaptured your full previous abilities, my uninformed guess is that you're still a far better singer than average. It's not the same -- I've lost some skills of my own, so I KNOW it's not -- but sometimes the ability to still bring something wonderful to people can be enough. It helps me, at least.

[Boz-pot]

Thanks, Lmnop - thankyou for being so understanding.

I'd like to think I'm a reasonably good singer as my parents are both professionals and it seems to run in the family. I had a brilliant singing lesson today. After months of difficulties and getting the sneaking suspicion that my teacher though I was a waste of space, I started to improve to the point where I can not only sing the things I learnt before cancer, but I can sing them WELL! It is such a terrible thing having perhaps your best attribute taken away from you. I was constantly trying to convince people that I was once a good singer (or at least, I was told I was good). Again comes up the old chestnut "There are people far worse off, people who are crippled", well to a singer, not being able to sing is being crippled.

Lmnop, you mentioned having also lost skills to illness - may I ask you what they were? If it's too painful to go into I can understand.

Boz

[~nestling~]

((((((Boz))))))

I think I said this before, but have you looked up PTSD?

[Lily]

I hear ya, Boz. I made the mistake of telling an old boyfriend about my mother's abuse and neglect of us when we were little, and he piped up, "hey, some kids don't even have mothers!" Erm, thanks.

It's great that your family is cool about this too.

What gives people the idea that having survived cancer, you are now only entitled to reduced expectations? You tell 'em, Boz!

lily

[Boz-pot]

Thanks, Lily.

I think I said this before, but have you looked up PTSD?

Yes and I think it began about two years after my treatment ended, so it was delayed but PTSD is a definite possibility as a trigger for my problems, including I should wonder, my singing.

[celestia]

This sort of thing happens to me all the time. I say I'm depressed etc. and there are times when I've been suicidal and at there are always people who assume that just because I survived cancer I should be permanently glad to be alive. Well I'm sorry but it's just not the case. I've been prone to depression all my life and before I had cancer it was ok for me to be depressed (to a certain extent) but ever since I was ill it's like there's this unwritten law that if you survive a serious illness, you're no longer allowed to be unhappy.

Mine's a little different, but I relate to the "people suck" in this area. I had a very special, whirlwind, deeply intense love affair with my husband of 2 years, Bradley, who died of cancer almost 5 years ago.

I could give you a quarter for every time I've heard, "be thankful for what you HAD...some people never experience that kind of love in a lifetime." HELLO?!?!? Fuck off!

You have every right to your depression, and YES you are allowed to be unhappy and fuck people who don't understand.

My nephew had non-Hodgkins (sp?) lymphoma at the same time my husband was sick. They had bald heads together, he has felt badly (not recently) that he lived and Bradley died that whole survivors guilt thing, because they had kind of bonded. Bradley was the only one allowed to give my nephew his shots, etc. PTSD, indeed. For everyone affected closely by a serious illness.

My brother, the kid's dad, totally flipped out, drinking drugging carrying on like a crazy person 1 year after newphews treatments were over. Now it's been a couple of years that nephew is well and he is only NOW (my brother) feeling the grief of all it did to the family, the fear of possibly losing a child...all the things he had put on the back burner for the entire year nephew was being treated, because he had to be in DAD mode. Just like my grief didn't hit me like a freight train until 2 years after my husband died.

You've been through a lot, and you are entitled to feel what you feel. If people are insensitive out of ignorance it's easier to cut them slack, for me anyway. But I still get pissed and I get REALLY pissed when people who are close to me and were close to the situation at the time say stupid shit like that.

Anyway, sorry this is longish--one of my areas of interest and peeve(s).

Hugs if ya want them,

S9

[Boz-pot]

you are allowed to be unhappy and fuck people who don't understand.

Kinky! (Sorry, couldn't resist!)

Thanks S9 I appreciate everything including the hugs *folds hugs carefully and puts them in a draw for safe keeping*

Survivor's guilt has played a big part in my problems. Sometimes I think I'm subconsciously trying to do myself in because I think I should be dead.

[celestia]

Survivor's guilt has played a big part in my problems. Sometimes I think I'm subconsciously trying to do myself in because I think I should be dead.

No! No! No! No deadness allowed around here. You've suffered plenty already...cancer is no picnic to say the least...

More hugs (there are plenty....)

S9