I’ve fought off cancer seven times
Dear cancer,
More ops, more diseased parts hacked off
We’ve waged war for 24 years now.
And I’ll admit, you’ve almost broken me more than once. You began your vendetta back in 1995, when I was 17.
While getting an inverted nipple checked, doctors found cancer in my left breast.
‘We’ll need to remove your nipple,’ a surgeon said.
Following that, I was part of a hormone-therapy drug trial to kill off the rest of the cancer cells.
‘It could put you at risk of cervical cancer in the future,’ my consultant explained. But I was so scared, I agreed. Back then, the word cancer meant death, and I was terrified my life would be cut short.
I was monitored every six months from then on, both my breasts and my cervix. I married in 1996, at 18. Admittedly, I rushed into it, was convinced that I didn’t have long left.
Sure enough, five years later, our marriage was over. But
I picked myself up, moved on. Until June 2006, when a routine smear test came back abnormal. And further tests revealed the worst.
Cervical cancer.
I was only 28. Told I’d need a hysterectomy, my world fell apart.
I’d always wanted kids. But with no partner since splitting with my husband, it hadn’t happened.
Tests showed freezing my eggs wasn’t a viable option. I sobbed for weeks, trying to come to terms with it all. In the end, a drastic hysterectomy was the only way to save my life. After that, quarterly hospital appointments consumed my life. I’d have a CAT scan, wait anxiously for the results, pray nothing was found. But by 2010, there was another lump in my left breast. Doctors suggested a mastectomy. ‘No,’ I said.
My breasts were part of my femininity, and I’d already lost too much of that.
So I had a lumpectomy, chemotherapy and radiotherapy. But you still weren’t done. At 34, doctors discovered vulva wall cancer and part of my vulva was removed. Doctors constructed a ‘designer vagina’. But I didn’t make it two years before you were back. Diagnosed with breast cancer for a third time,
I had a further lump in my left breast removed. Then, in 2015, doctors found a raised spot on my right cheek.
Skin cancer.
Then a mole was found on my leg, and again on my face. More ops, more diseased parts of my body hacked off. Relentless.
But the worst was to come... In September 2017, I was told I had bowel cancer – then, a few months later, my father William, 73, was struck down with lung cancer. ‘We’ll fight it together,’ he said. But Dad died within weeks. His death broke me. I continued with my treatment – for Dad. But the cancer, and the poison pumped inside me to kill it, has taken its toll.
My hair is wispy, brittle.
I tire easily.
But I’m alive! And my ceaseless fight against you, cancer, has shown me just what my body is capable of.
Amazingly, last September, I went into remission – for the first time in 24 years.
You might be back for me one day. But, believe me, I’ll fight.
Because, while you’re relentless and cruel, cancer, life is very much worth living. Still here, Angelica Angelica Fenney, 41, St Helens