Smoke and Mirrors!

After my New Year's resolution to regularly update my blog I find a third of the year has gone by already! I had been planning to write for ages - I find it hard to want to put down my thoughts when I don't feel so good - I quite often can't think straight at all when my batteries run down which is happening more frequently and I just don't have time when things are good and I'm rushing around fitting in years worth of living into a short space of time in case time runs out! I had come up with the title a while back as I feel that characterises how I am currently living my life and how I cope with the constant uncertainty and fragility of my health by conjuring up excitement,glamour,fun,humour,culture and spending as much time enjoying company of great old and new friends in order to distract myself and those around me from the constant drain of living with terminal cancer which I am never truly able to forget totally for one second. I have always been a cheerful soul by nature - my family nicknamed me "Laughing Anne" when I was small and I was visiting my mum last week and rummaging through old photos and childhood memories and school reports acknowledged my cheerful demeanour and chatty(too much so for some teachers!)disposition despite my disorganisation!! I like to see the best in people and life and look for the good in everything I do and see corny as that may sound. I feel I have inherited this in part from my beloved father who sadly died of prostate cancer when I was 15. He was also very positive through his illness and I'm sure that helped him to cope with the situation. However,being constantly positive can be a strain and just is not possible all the time. I do struggle to admit when I'm finding things tough. I know that I'm very fortunate to have had stable scans for over 3 years now and I look so well and happy most of the time. However,every day I face side effects due to the treatment past and present keeping me alive and keeping the cancer at bay at present. I face a lot of side effects experienced by people in the 60s plus like aching joints,short-term memory and concentration loss,menopausal symptoms and just often generally feeling much older than my years which is hard to square up to at 42 and yet all the time I am just also so grateful to be here nearly 10 years after original diagnosis when I have lost many friends during that time to this awful illness.Moaning doesn't come naturally to me but it does irritate me hearing people moan about such trivial things when I very occasionally mention my discontent of having a crap immune system - this was at a time during the winter when I was constantly ill with bugs,colds,chest infections for 6 months and someone I considered to be a friend said that I should be grateful I've been "so well" for so long referring to my "clear" scans!!I hadn't seen them for ages and I do realise that there is a lot of ignorance around cancer and I don't blame people for that but honestly I think I should be allowed a small rant from time to time! I am not "clear" and never will be - it's just that the 9 months of intensive weekly chemo and biological agent I had in 2008 whilst going through a most acrimonious unexpected divorce (nice timing!)plus the daily hormone drug and 3 monthly hormone injections, which have plunged me straight into the menopause and give countless daily side-effects and undoubtedly have cause some brain damage as my cognitive function has definitely been compromised, are keeping the disease at bay for the moment but is highly likely to relapse at any time. People sometimes comment about the amount of holidays and adventures I have had as if my life is just all fun - this is rarely real friends but people who don't realise what lies beneath my smiling face and the battle my body is constantly up against. I always think to myself "Well - my cancer unfortunately never goes on holiday - I wish it would but it comes with me everywhere I go!!". I went to Sicily alone to celebrate my birthday a year ago in February to return to the great Italian language school I'd been to a few months earlier. I'd gone with the remainder of a cold I'd had since the December and had just got over 2 chest infections and unfortunately as soon as I got there and unfortunately found myself in a very cold unheated appartment another chest infection took hold and I was racked with coughing every morning and knew I should really go to the doctor but was worried about being put into hospital and ruining the holiday so I soldiered on having antibiotics with me and made the best of it and still had an amazing time. I like to feel as "normal" as possible so like to keep as anonymous as I can about my illness. I will tell people if I feel comfortable and if appropriate but generally like to distract myself from the cancer as much as I can as it's with me always! I hadn't meant this post to be downbeat but have just been feeling a bit down as I'm having more of what I call my "crash days" between 1 and 6 days a week!!My problem is that I have limited energy but I put it all into everything I do and it gets depleted more quickly than I would like and when it depletes I have literally nothing left and just walking to the bathroom from my bed takes a major effort and I regularly get migraines and bad headaches.I tend to just have to "hibernate" when this happens and just rest up as best I can with my wonderful dog Bass as my loyal companion and then when energy returns I go out and face "my public" once more to enjoy the next adventures. I have had lots of amazing adventures and experiences already this year and am very excited to have been nominated by Breast Cancer Care to carry the Olympic torch in the relay on 25th May. This will be very challenging for me to have enough stamina for the day but will be a most memorable and wonderful experience for me and all my family of friends. Without the tremendous support and love I receive from those around me I don't know how I would cope so I'm truly grateful to you all.