Lauren Hill & Bob Marley
Today's blog is dedicated to my dear friend Taia who lost her fight with bipolar disorder 2 years ago this July. She was one of my dearest friends and her loss has taught me many life lessons. Its funny how human nature seems to state we have to endure losses before we truly start to appreciate the life we have. I've lost 4 close friends in the past 10 years. 2 died at 37 from heart attacks suddenly, 1 fell off a cliff and then my T committed suicide. Each time I lost someone I felt this light go on and I thought I'm going to live my life to the fullest. Life is precious and life is short!! As quickly as the light goes on though, it seems to get switched off. Its like I just go flick the switch off or turn the dimmer down. Life returns back to normal after the hurt and grief start to fade. Before you know it, its as if nothings really changed, your just missing a few of the pieces to the puzzle. What we don't realize is that every time we experience a loss we lose a piece of 'our own personal puzzle'. The question is - how do we replace that loss? Can we?
After Taia died I went through a lot of emotions, everything from grief to guilt to deep pain. As painful as it was and as much as I miss her it did lead me down a path of self-discovery. In the past two years I've done a few things I've been wanting to do for years: I travelled to SE Asia backpacking for two months, I started working on my degree in psychology at York University and I started volunteering at a shelter for abused women and kids. These things really brought a great perspective in my life and helped me focus on what makes me tick. The truth of the matter though is it wasn't until I was diagnosed with cancer two months ago that I really, truly got it about what matters and what doesn't. At the end of the day there are three simple things that matter: Your health, your family and love. When I say love I don't necessarily narrow it down to romantic love. Love is so encompassing and can include everything from romantic love to passionate love to friendship love, right down to simple love for mankind in general. It's essential in whatever way you like to define it, without love we really cease to exist as our unique human selves.
I hold onto that philosophy as I embark on the next part of this fight against the Alien in my body, the visitors. For those of you who watch V on TV you'll get what I'm sayin'. ;-) From now on CanSer's new name is 'the visitor'!! It ain't stayin so that's exactly what it is - the visitor. In fact as of yesterday it would appear that my body has already kindly asked 'the visitor' to leave because my CT scan and Bone Marrow both came back negative for further involvement of Lymphoma. I'm officially stage 1 - localized disease (this is a very, very good thing - do a little dance, make a little love - get down tonight..haha) ... YIPEEEE!! BUT WAIT...back up...it isn't that simple. I still have to do chemo/radiation. I've been struggling with this the past 2 weeks but finally made my decision today that I'm going to do it. Given the aggressive, high-grade type of lymphoma (and ultimately blood cancer) I have it seems to be the wisest decision if I want a complete cure. (we all know there is never really a complete cure when it comes to cancer - but as close to that as possible is what I'm aiming for.) So Monday it is. I have to do 2 or so months of chemo followed by 3 weeks of radiation and then I'm potentially in the clear. :-) At the moment I have the best of the best prognosis - its just getting through the yucky mustard gas poison they are going to infuse me with on Monday to get 'the visitors' to permanently leave.
I have a amazing team behind me including my kickbutt Naturopath Dr. Meghan Walker. I highly recommend her. http://www.integrativehealthinstitute.ca/index.shtml. I have my master guru herbal guy out west, my kickbutt naturopath doctor here who has consulted with the head of Lymphoma at sick kids (they are related) and my oncologist team at Sunnybrook. On top of that there is 'Team Brandi' which includes all my amazing friends, family and acquaintances that have come on board as I enter stage 2 of my battle.
So that's that ... I'm going to kick 'the visitor's butts out of B-town and continue to wage war on there little spikey behinds'. I do this for those I've lost either tragically or to cancer or old age and for all those who activiely continue to support me through thick and thin.
Be gone visitors.....grrrrrrrrrr......
Bgirl
I can't believe it's been nearly 2 years since Taia died, I miss her too. Thank you for being so honest in this post Bran, I love you for it. Something snapped a little inside of me when she died, and it was a wake up call that made me see I needed to get help for what I was going through as well. But you're so right about the light dimming as time goes by and you slip back into normality. There has to be a way to not let that happen, I just haven't figured it out yet.
ReplyDeleteSo great that you ahve such a positive diagnosis lady! Keep pushing forward and keep your eyeson the prize (the stuff in the middle will merely be a blip on the radar of the rest of your life). I'm loving thge blog and staying up to date with your journey and hope to catch up with you later in the year when I stop by the T dot on my way home xxx
ReplyDeleteYay to the results of your bmb!!! I think this is the silver lining at the horizon. B-strong for what is to come next, but you know that after that, you've kicked some serious butt and they ain't coming back!! xoxo
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