Me and Steve became mates on 13th April 1993 at about 2.30 in the afternoon. You may think that is really accurate and how could I possibly remember it? Well that was when the train arrived at Royston station and we got off to start our Army basic training. He was 17 and I was 18, just a couple of gobby kids who thought they were street smart and knew everything. We were in the same section and slept a couple of beds apart. We hit it off straight away and became good mates. On our first overnight exercise we were partnered up and spent the night messing about and chatting about how and why we had ended up here. We went through the next 6 months of training and then even after being posted we were in the same city in Germany at different regiments so still saw each other, had a beer together, kept on messing about and just being good mates.
We continued to be posted at similar times to places and stayed mates never really ever falling out and then in 1999 we were both posted to the same unit at the same time. We had some great times over the next couple of years, did some things that make great stories, they're unbelievable at times but they really did happen although there is no way I'm writing them down here, not a chance! We then got posted together again to Maidstone and in 2002 I left because I just didn't want to be a soldier anymore. Even after I left we stayed mates and would speak regularly and meet for a brew or a beer whenever we were in the same place. We gave the readings at each others weddings and every now and then still had one of our mad nights out that generally finished in a casino at about 6 o' clock the next morning. Why am I writing all this? Well when I was diagnosed a lot of people didn't know what to say to me so stayed away, some others I pushed away and in some cases it was a bit of both. Steve knew what to say to me and stayed about to help me and support me through it as only he could. I couldn't speak to him about it, I couldn't speak to anyone but he just kept phoning or meeting me for a coffee and talking about rubbish, helping me to fill the days and take my mind off treatment and the situation. He did this all the way through to remission and then it got really hard for me, even as I write that I feel disappointed in myself because I'm thinking how I thought this next bit was going to be hard for me and that was a really selfish thing. We had met for a coffee as I was passing through Nottingham and just as I was about to leave he showed me a lump in his collarbone and said "What do you reckon that is Daz? I'm a bit nervous about it and I'm off to see the Doctor. Go on have a feel, what do you think?" As I sat there rubbing his collarbone and saying "Christ Steve, we're on camp, I hope to God no one looks in this car window!" I was thinking it can't be cancer, out of our group of mates, Graham had a brain tumour, I had been through Sarcoma and the odds of a third one of us getting it before he was 40 just seemed really remote. I also worried because I knew if it was I would have to be there to help him and I still was petrified about what my future with cancer would be, how could I give advice and support someone? But how could I turn my back, he was one of my best mates? Over the next couple of weeks he went through the tests and we kept speaking, he knew I was struggling a bit but appreciated that we could talk and he was asking me if I had had the same tests and how had I found them and then he went quiet for a couple of days. I caught up with him on the sunday afternoon on the phone and as normal he asked me first how I was, hoped I was getting there and then told me "It's cancer, it's Non Hodgkins Lymphoma and I'm at stage 2". I didn't know what stage two was, I had always avoided all cancer information, I hadn't heard about this type of cancer either before but when he said he had secondary mets in his chest I knew it was worse than mine. He told me they were going to give him Chemo to get rid of the ones in his chest as they had cut the two in his shoulder out during the biopsy and they wouldn't operate on his chest. He was really positive or seemed like he was, he had always lived his life that way, always positive, always about enjoying it and it didn't seem like cancer would change that. I felt sick to my stomach, partly because I was worried about my best mate and partly because even now after being told he had secondary mets he was being more positive than me and I was in remission. Then I felt guilty for feeling that way, I should be pleased that he could face it that way, I should be there to help him but I was petrified I couldn't because that meant I would have to face up to cancer, to talk about it, to look at it closely. I was going to have to find a way and that was difficult. Over the next few months we talked a lot, we always spoke a lot but it had always been about rubbish, just messing about but now we were having some really quite deep and for us profound conversations. We talked a bit about what was scaring him, I talked about what had scared me, he talked about feeling either really high or really low, I talked about how I had been the same. He asked me about how my treatment had been, he told me about getting ready for chemotherapy. I had no idea what chemo would be like, I had obviously seen people going through it and heard stories but I didn't want him to hear those as some were really hard to hear and he didn't need that. He still seemed like he was ready to take on the world, he was still Steve and still joking. As his chemo started I didn't see him for the first couple of cycles, he was getting used to it and if I'm honest he told me he was having a fierce time of it. He explained how he felt ill, really ill, how he slept when he could as he was struggling with sleeping at the start of each cycle. Then in the second week of one of his cycles he gave me a call and said he was going to pop over and did I fancy going out for a brew? Yeah, course I did, I'll meet you over at Starbucks. "No Daz, I'll come to you, I'll pick you up" Alright if you want Steve, you sure? I can meet you there, not a problem. "No, No, it's alright I'll pick you up, see you in a bit". That was a weird one and I should of known something was happening, this was Steve, I could tell. Then there he was, a black Porsche pulled up outside and a beaming Steve got out of it. "Do you like it? I just bought it". We got in and drove over to Starbucks, laughing about his Porsche as I had seen all his previous cars! He had decided to treat himself, his words were something along the lines of "Well if anything happens I can always say I had a Porsche..." I smiled because again it just summed him up, once again he had found an opportunity to be himself, that loud, brash but still likeable lad. I started to see and feel that cancer didn't have to take any part of you away, he could still be himself, he was having a rubbish time but he was still himself. It started to make me think a bit about who I had been and had I lost part of that, part of me? I knew I had, I had changed and not for the better, it wasn't for the worse either, it was just that I had lost a bit of me and that was a hard realisation. As we sat in Starbucks we bumped into another mate of mine and as I introduced them I said Steve had been in the Army with me and still was my mate said "Oh you day off today then?" Steve's answer was "yeah I'm having a bit of time off" and that was it, he clammed up, and that wasn't his normal self and I knew not all was well. We went off for something to eat and he told me how he only really had an appetite for a couple of days every cycle and today he was starving. As we ate, I said "you alright mate, I'm sorry if you thought I was going to tell Paul, I wasn't". "No it's alright Daz, I'm just sick of f**king sympathy, people looking at you weird and not knowing what to say or saying what they think you expect to hear, it does my head in, I feel shit enough without them making it worse". This was another realisation for me, I had felt the same way and just assumed it was me, but no Steve felt the same, what I felt wasn't different or weird, I didn't want to tell everyone and neither did he, maybe how I felt wasn't different, maybe I shouldn't feel bad feeling how I felt. We had a chat about it, I told him I had felt like that, I still did, I hated talking about it and he said he was the same, he would only talk to a couple of people, he hated people thinking they knew how he felt, it was easy talking to me because I'd been there. It was true, I could talk to Steve, I thought it was just because we were good mates but it wasn't he knew how I felt because he had been there. That was something I should see, people who had been there would know how I had felt, how I was feeling, they would understand and maybe talking to them would help, maybe being able to speak about it to people who had been there would allow me to see my feelings weren't different. We talked every week for the rest of his cycles when we could and then on his last cycle I was due in for my 3 month check up on the same day. I said I would have it and come down and see him if he was still in. After I said that I started to panic, if I went in and was told my cancer was back I might have to have chemo and did I really want to see what it was about, if I got bad news I wouldn't be able to stop and chat because I knew it would be too much. I was still scared that this was my only future and I didn't want to see it until I had to, I was sure that it would come one day and it could wait until then. At the same time, my mate was going to be sat there having his treatment and I would have to walk right past the door, of course I had to go in, but what if I had good news, how could I go in there and be happy, he was still going through it and didn't know what his future was yet, others would be the same, it would be wrong of me, wouldn't it? I kept swinging back and forth until my check up, I really didn't want to see what chemo looked like, it was not for me, my mate is in there just go.... In the end I did go, I had been given another 3 months clear, I could relax again and I couldn't not go, I had to call in. I walked in and felt sick as I did, here I was around people with cancer, around the thing that scared me most, I could do it, I could be around it, I could see what it meant to have chemo. Yes it scared me, but I could control it if I tried. Steve went through his treatment and finally got given his good news, he was in remission and not long after we were sat at my kitchen table talking about it all. He had started to feel the remission guilt that so many of us feel. He didn't feel he could celebrate beating it as to him in his mind he hadn't and people wanted him to, people expected that of him more than they would most people and he struggled with that. I explained that I had felt the same, I had also experienced the mood swings he was experiencing and I told him he needed to speak to someone. He wouldn't, I could see he was just as I had been, denying it was a problem, keeping it in, I kept on at him and he finally agreed to have a think about it. I realised that I was giving advice, I was helping someone get through it, I was talking about how I felt, christ yes I was, I was talking about how I felt and I could do it, and most importantly it was helping me. It was really helping me. Then something I never thought would or could ever happen did, Steve started talking about his cancer and comparing it to mine, he jokingly said I was soft because I only had one tumour and he had 4, I turned to him and said that his wasn't as bad as mine as my one was bigger than all his put together and that his tumour envy was most unbecoming!! Then it happened, we were laughing, we were laughing at cancer. We had done the think that all squaddies always do, we had found humour in the blackest situation, in the darkest thing and we were laughing at it. It suddenly gave me some more power against it, some more power I could use when times got tough. If ever I get really down I think back to that day and use that memory, sat there laughing over whether it was worse to have more or a bigger tumour, this was a big switch in my head and still is a base point I can hold to if I need it. Life goes on, even after cancer life goes on and we went back to chatting every week, we still talked about it of course , we talked when we were struggling and when we weren't, we both still struggled with what it meant for our future, we both still struggled to plan anything a long time into the future, it was still all about the now. Then in May this year something happened that had a profound effect on me. Steve was travelling home from work and had an accident on his motorbike, he was in a coma by the time he got to hospital and he is still in it. It was a moment where a light came on in my head, we had both survived a fight with cancer, we hadn't won the war but we had won our battles, yet we were also both still petrified it would come back, we were both convinced it would. The thing is, it wasn't cancer that put Steve in a coma, it wasn't cancer that put his life on hold, it was an accident, a bloody accident and that could happen to anyone at anytime. I could spend the rest of my life worrying about cancer everyday but it wasn't going to make my life better, I had a choice, a choice to live my life, to look to my future, to plan for a future, to live a happy life, a life where I do and enjoy the things that make me happy, to spend time with the people that make me happy. Yes the cancer may come back but I could also be in an accident tomorrow, all of us only have a limited time here anyway and spending it worrying about what will end that time will not make that time any better, it will not make it a happy time. Only by trying to live a full life, a life of love, happiness and fun will we make whatever time is left no matter what happens.
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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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