Mr Birks has Cancer

I haven't posted on my blog for quite some time and it's not just because of my usual tardiness.  I usually post about nice things on here, things I enjoy, things that make me happy but since my husband was diagnosed with terminal cancer it has been hard to find anything that brings me joy.

When my husband told me that he had found a lump, my first reaction was 'I hope it's not cancer'.  His Mum and Dad both died of cancer a few years previously and within one year of each other, so in our family cancer means death.  No survivors, no fighters who have won, just beautiful people that have left us too early.  When he went for his second biopsy, I knew it was cancer.  By this time, my optimism that it could be something else had disappeared and I was beginning to think through practicalities - How would he cope with treatment?  How would he eat?  How would he talk?  Even with our experiences of cancer, I still hadn't faced the idea that he might die.  He's 48.  The lump in his neck would be removed and it couldn't have spread.  When I found out it couldn't be removed, it had spread and it couldn't be cured, my first thought this time was 'how will we tell our children that their Daddy is going to die?'

The thing that struck me on one of our early visits to hospital was how much I didn't know.  My knowledge of cancer had mainly come from the TV where adverts tend to focus on breast cancer and the colour pink.  In soap operas it's often the women who have cancer and their deaths tend to be fairly peaceful after they have said goodbye to all their loved ones.  The cancer I was experiencing was brutal, it was ugly, it was painful.  The amount of Macmillan booklets available in the hospital waiting room revealed my ignorance - booklets about treatments and after effects, diet, exercise, finance, sex, death and, importantly for us, how to talk to children and teenagers about cancer.  Neither of us wanted to face that conversation with the kids but we knew we couldn't hide it.  Our eldest is a smart cookie and had already started noticing that things weren't quite right at home.  When the time came, we sat together as a family and I followed the advice in the booklet.  We answered their questions as best we could and then we all cried and cuddled until we felt we could carry on. 

We all want to protect our kids from painful things but lying to them about Daddy's illness was something that wouldn't have been fair to them and would have been impossible for us.  We have had family therapy thanks to the cancer charity The Big C and they have been given worry monsters and a Cloud Kit.  There is nothing that can make the situation more bearable but we have been able to support them and have been supported ourselves by telling them early on.

The language of cancer is confusing.  Firstly there are all these new terms and new abbreviations for things.  There are so many different types of cancer, impacting on different parts of the body.  The treatments are developing all the time and not all of them are suitable for every patient.  Chemotherapy is a cocktail of different drugs and different regimes and at an already difficult time, it can be overwhelming.  There's lots of information online and people to ask when you're ready.  I just deal with a little bit at a time, it's all I can manage. 

It's also difficult to describe cancer without personifying it.  It's evil, it's a parasite, it's a living thing joined to, but separate from your loved one's body.  When I look at my husband's very visible tumour (which I do very often, checking for any tiny changes), I hate it.  I hate that it's there, I hate what it is doing to my beautiful husband's body, I hate what it is doing to our lives.

The idea of fighting cancer and the language of war is also something that I don't feel comfortable with.  For some, cancer is a battle that cannot be won.  The grind of surviving each day with constant discomfort and pain is so hard.  My husband shows so much bravery every time he gets out of bed, travels to the hospital and goes into the radiotherapy unit; yet he will not be a survivor. 

And so cancer has become part of our lives.  Having not wanted to say the word, to voice my fears, cancer is now very present in our home.  We are dealing with our grief, which is difficult to understand as no one has died...but we know it is coming.  The grief of others is something I am unable to face; my husband is a cherished brother and friend.

I hope that writing this personal account of our experiences might bring some comfort to others but if your experience is anything like mine, it might just be one more cancer story that sinks you into depression. As someone said to me 'just remember there are no rules to this process, we're all just making it up as we go along.  You are doing brilliantly'. 

There is much more I could add - our journey isn't over and we are still hopeful that we will get some pain free time before the end.   Above all, I want everyone to know just how loved this very special man is.