Dear Lisa

It's May.  I've posted photos my Facebook page and they're greyscale, because it's Brain Tumour Awareness month and the colour is grey.  I look at the photos of the scenary I love and call home, and the children I love and hold precious with the colour drained out of them and think how fitting it is. When my child was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumour all the colour left my world.  But it is 5 years ago now.... and that is cause indeed for celebration.  They have been gruelling years and I wish I could go and whisper in my ear some things I've learned along the way.... for this is what I'd tell myself.

My dearest Lisa,
Your world is about to change.  You are going to get up one morning and everything will be normal, but it is never going to be normal again.  Your baby girl is going to look so small and fragile and you will have to endure the longest night watching her life ebb away.  There will be discussions about harvesting her organs and you will scream silently and vomit in the sink.  You will pray, beg and try and make all kinds of deal with God to take you in her place and you are going to feel like you are disconnected from your body, mind and soul.  You are going to be forever changed by this event.
But know this, Lisa.  She is going to survive that night.  She is going to survive the 8 hour surgery to remove that tumour and she is going to get through the months of cancer treatment that lie in front of you.
Breathe.  Keep breathing. You are going to have travel out of country for treatment and you are going to crumble.  But during this time you are going to meet some people and they are going to become the lifelong friend kind of people.  Your stories are now interwoven and you will be forever grateful that it was exactly these people that you met during those times.  You will take your girl and they will fill her body with drugs and her brain with radiation and one day you will be overcome with it all and collapse on the corridor floor leaving the radiation room.   You will be picked up and carried by a man to a sofa who will hold you for 5 mins and just let you cry in his arms. The kindness of strangers is great indeed. You'll then panic about your son but he'll tell you it's all taken care of.  And after a while he'll carry on his day and you'll carry on yours and there will be many moments like this.
There will be a barrage of mascara Mondays and 5 years on, you will allow a smile to play on your lips when you stand in front of the makeup counter looking for non-waterproof mascara.  You know how  the woman shopping beside you is just looking for mascara, but to you, its brave in a bottle.
You will yearn for your home and your family.  Know this - you will get there.  You will get your hearts desire and make that change.  You will get there.

such an innocent sounding word

I came across this post that I'd composed some years back recently and it was a timely reminder to stay grounded and grateful.   The skin checks continue - I had to have another part of my skin removed this year - from my face.  The doctor told me it would leave a scar, then he had commented how pragmatic I was being which he found refreshing - we didn't linger long on the scar side of the conversation.  I wasn't too bothered about that.  I am covered in scars and they map out the journey of the road travelled thus far.  They may not look pretty but they tell the story of my life.  Some due to accidents, some due to cancer, some due to harm caused, and others like the scars on the inside tell the story of the salmon girl years.  I did end up having to have treatment for melanoma after I'd written that post, but the sentiment still remains the same. 

I now sport a rather fetching Indiana Jones style scar on my face just below my lip and it doesn't distress me - it reminds me how lucky and blessed I am that in this day, this moment, I am healthy and its good to be alive. 

2012

Melanoma.  The word doesn't sound threatening, it doesn't sound as though it could turn your world upside down.  It doesn't sound terminal.  It doesn't sound malignant.  When I was told I have malignant melanoma, though I knew what that meant, it didn't fill me with the same level as panic as when the Doctor started saying cancer.
That was 2 years ago, and I was fortunate.  It was caught early and I had a wedge of flesh cut out of my body, and all the disease with it.  Given an all-clear and told to come back to see the Dermatologist every 6 months.  So every 6 months, off I go to the Dermatologist, who looks at my pushing 40 year old naked body, under bright lights and with a magnifying glass.  Lady Godiva I may not be and I wonder what runs through his mind - is all flesh just a slab of meat?  I don't have a gym toned body - instead it wears the evidence of giving birth twice, eating one too many pieces of chocolate and not dog walking 3 times a week as swiftly as I should.  It also now bares many more scars - removals of more "tissue" that is unhealthy.  And the waiting continues over and over again.  I am cut, the skin gets sent to pathology and the results come in.  Then sometimes I am cut again with a wider excision, sometimes I am told - yes this mole or area is changing and they are pre-cancerous cells, sometimes they are dyspraxic and sometimes it is the innocent sounding melanoma.    I have multiple scars on my feet, my back, my arms, my neck and chunks of me have been examined under a microscope because they're unhealthy.  This isn't supposed to happen.  I thought I would have one isolated incident.  My children are 8 years and 5 years and most days I feel so lucky and blessed.  I am well looked after by these medics.  They find these diseased cells early enough that I only have to have skin removed by surgery.  I don't have to have skin and body poisoned by radio or chemotherapy.  Yet.  Some days I think I will live to see my children all grown up.  And some days I think about the moles that they don't find.  My body is covered in freckles and moles.  What about the ones that might go unnoticed?  I'll be honest.  Some of the ones that I thought were fine, have been unhealthy, so how's a girl to know?  We don't know how much time we have.  Let it be a daily walk in gratitude, harmony and vitality.  This finite life on earth is short, even at 80 years its way shorter than we think.  There is a time to be born and a time to die, but the living - that part comes in between.  This gift of life is just out there waiting to be grabbed with both hands. How will you unwrap this gift today?