Therapy was not the end of my issues, it enabled the first step to become the 2nd, 3rd and 4th steps. As I continued my therapy I continued to try the methods I was given, it was not easy but I was learning to push a bit further and then a bit further still into the the panic. The panic wasn't getting any less, it was still crippling when I first felt it each time but as it built I used what I had learnt. I sat quietly and thought about it, really concentrated on the feelings as I contemplated death and what that meant, what it would mean to those around me. The feelings didn't lessen but my body dealt with them differently, it peaked sooner but it also went sooner. Sometimes it would leave me drained and that's when I used the mindfulness techniques to centre me and control that. This was the second step.
The third step happened when my best mate Steve met me for a coffee at about this time to ask what I thought the lump in his neck was. It was Non Hodgkins Lymphoma and it was stage 2 when he was finally diagnosed. Steve had been one of the friends who had stood by my side whilst I had gone through diagnosis and treatment and there was no way I could turn my back on him, no way. This meant I had to face talking and thinking about cancer which was more advanced than mine had been. Steve was a positive person, most of the time, and we talked when he was positive and when he wasn't. This part of my journey needs a separate chapter and will be the next one I write, it was another key step, a really important one. The run up to Christmas that year was the 4th step and strange one, I still thought that it would be my last, I could control the fear of that but it was still in my head. I wanted it to be very special, I wanted my kids to have everything they wanted, if this was the last one I would see they would never forget it. They were spoilt, so many gifts under the tree they didn't know where to look, I turned my phone off for the whole two weeks and just enjoyed their laughter and joy as the excitement built in their heads and hearts. At the end of new years eve everyone had gone to bed and I found myself alone in the front room watching the end of Hootenany with Jools Holland with a good bottle of red, well at that point it was probably my third bottle of good red and I sat and took stock of the year. I raised my glass to absent friends, I always think of them this night and wonder what they would have been doing and then I thought of the year I had experienced. I think I had known the previous Christmas and new year that the lump in my leg being tested was cancer but I had chosen to ignore those thoughts. I had been my typical stubborn self and thought that if it was I would be one of those brave people who would see the positive in everything and what will be will be. Well I had got that wrong! By a long way! I couldn't and wasn't going to be disappointed with myself though, how did I know how I would really react until I had faced it, I didn't. I knew now but that didn't make me weak, no way. I thought of the journey up to this night, I thought of radiotherapy, of Josie and how she had treated me with dignity and humour, of Mr. Perks and Ms Raurell who had planned and carried out my surgery, I thought of Nicola always there to speak if I needed to, of Dave and the mindfulness course and Ben who had shattered my comfort zone with his CBT. I thought of the people who had supported me, my family and friends who cared and carried me through, I thought of the people who had become closer to me through their support, those who hadn't been that close at the start of the year but were now important people in my life. All of those people had played a part in getting me to this New Year's Eve and I was thankful. Truly thankful. I wondered if this would be the last time I saw the bells in, if it was then my kids would remember this Christmas, they really would. It was back into work and a 3 month check up as January started, and step number 5. The positivity I had built up over the break disappeared quite quickly as soon as the reminder popped up on my laptop calendar. I'm not going to write about the feelings as I built up to the appointment because I have before and this was 6 months so still early and the feelings were intense. I looked for and found the people who cared to get me through it and they did, a few words, a look, a smile, they did what they could and it helped, it helped a lot. The same cycle, anxiety and fear, appointment, relief, positivity for a few weeks. On the 7th of February I went to see Frank Turner at the Ice Arena in Nottingham. I've linked some of his songs in this blog and I hope you've listened to them. I was having a great night, live music and a few beers makes me very happy. I was still in the post check up positive stage and had been looking forward to this night. About half way through the familiar opening chords of "Long Live the Queen" started and they punched me in the chest. I have put a link to the song here and really hope you listened to it. Anyway it had as I said earlier always been my favourite song and was about someone dying of breast cancer, it has a line "You live to dance another day..." and I hadn't listened to it since the day after I had been diagnosed. I hadn't been able to and then here it was and I had to listen. I sat for the first verse and then found myself starting to stand up. I had been mumbling the words, almost under my breath, and then I sang, I sang loud. I stood holding onto the railings, gripping them and I sang. I didn't feel until the end the tears on my cheeks, they were streaming down my face, streaming down as i sang at the top of my voice. I didn't care if people could see me, I didn't care what they thought of me, pain and fear were leaving me, not all of it but it was leaving. I was claiming my song back, I was taking it back from cancer and making it mine again. Music has a power, it is what I link to memories, to places, to people. Everywhere and everyone that is special to me has a song linked to them, and when I hear that song, the people or place come straight to the front of my mind. That's how it was in the Ice Arena, that song had reminded me of a friend before but now it was my song, it was my story. "I lived to dance another day, and now I had to dance for one more of us". I had lived to dance another day, I needed to grab that chance, I needed to live, to live well because I had a chance to live still. The song still raises me, I listen to it when I want a lift, it became part of my therapy, it is an ongoing part of it to this day. It's my walking song, it's one of the things that keeps me walking.....
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Darren EvansOn Feb 11th 2013 my life changed forever when I was diagnosed with a myxoid liposarcoma of the right thigh. This is my version of my life since then. Archives
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