The Day My Life Changed Forever

                                                          At last I knew.
(1)
     
After almost a decade of ill health and too many visits to doctors' rooms to count, I discovered the truth.

                           I have Advanced, Metastatic, Incurable Breast Cancer

Despite the fact that my health had been gradually deteriorating over a long period of time and that the deterioration was becoming more and more rapid, my usual bouncy, optimistic nature refused to give in to what was happening to me.  I was certain that I could beat this "thing" that refused to allow me to live a normal life and which tied me to my bed day and night.  The doctors had all told me I was fine, that there was no reason for my continuing fatigue.  "You simply have depression.  It's very common for women your age to feel this way".  "Some people are just more tired than others".  "Go to the gym and build your muscles".  "Eat more".  "I've written you a prescription for antidepressants.  They will help lift your mood".  These were the words I heard over and over until I gave up on doctors completely.  I knew I wasn't depressed.  I was still my happy self apart from being bored from looking at the four walls of my bedroom!

I decided I'd go it alone as no doctors would help me.  I would exercise as much as my limited strength allowed.  I would eat a vegetarian diet.  I would add meat to my vegetarian diet!  I would go for long, long walks, I decided, as I lay in my bed unable to get up unassisted!  I was determined that my enormous reserves of willpower would see me through as they always had.

I'd always been very physically active and loved exercising, walking, whizzing around my house cleaning every surface in sight, dragging heavy bags of compost around my garden, visiting the plant nursery and spending a day planting up the garden I had visualised in my imagination.  I loved spending my Sundays pruning and dead heading my garden full of roses and assorted cottage plants and, while doing so, chatting to anyone who stopped by to talk.  I loved our little dog who used to chase butterflies while I gardened.  

But abruptly, towards the end of 2011, all these much loved activities became impossible.

By 2014 I was unable to stand without falling backwards or walk without staggering or holding onto the wall.  The elaborate recipes I used to concoct became more and more simplified and I gradually learned to be less of a clean freak as I simply could not keep up my normal pace of life.

By 2015 it was so obvious I was unable to do more than put a load of washing in the machine, cook a simple meal and clean up afterwards unless I spent a large amount of time in bed generating the energy to do it and then recovering afterwards that my twenty six year old son told me he was taking over my tasks and I was to rest and recover.

This created some hilarious moments, as you'll see in my next post ~


If you have any questions or suggestions you may email Leapfrog at: positivetrialsblogspot@gmail.com