The Aftermath: Brain Dump 12/10/22 I posted the other day about world mental heath day (10th October) and my inbox flooded with messages. ‘I’m happy I made it to this point, but sometimes the sadness of what I’ve been through hurts more than the diagnosis itself’. Living with cancer is hard. Living after cancer is equally hard. Trying to grow my hair is frustrating (this quiff is out of control!). My skin is breaking out and flaking because of hormone treatment which is so depressing. The colder days are making my joints ache like never before. Approaching the end of all treatment is a worry. Yet you are told you are ‘okay’ by the professionals and supposed to just go live again. Strange. Confusing. Worrying. Don’t get me wrong a cancer diagnosis hits your gut like a tonne of bricks. However this post cancer path is a strange road too. I hope those who are going through treatment or are out the other side and recovering know that it’s okay to talk, okay to not be okay and it’s perfectly normal to sometimes feel angry and sad that this sh*tty card was dealt to us. Just because you might have finished treatment, even be a year or 10 years out the ‘other side’ that the memory may not leave you, sometimes you’ll be sad and that is valid. If you are supporting someone who’s going / been through a cancer journey. Be kind and understanding. To you it might be over and they might look and act ‘normal’ but inside, some days, it hurts. It really hurts. It’s scary. What if the worst happens again. What if my freedom is snatched away again. These can, for no reason flood the mind, and sometimes it’s you, the people around them that need to open the door to let these thoughts go. ‘Just checking in’, ‘how are you’, ‘is there anything on your mind’, ‘I’m still so proud of what you came through’ ... a small one sentence to you but possibly a world of relief to the one receiving this, knowing that cancer isn’t a forgotten or forbidden subject. It happens. It’s rubbish. But the more we all acknowledge it and are open the better we will all feel. This includes, 1,2 or even 10 years post cancer diagnosis. ❤️‍🩹