I personally have a fair few membership cards, my wallet is overflowing with coffee club, VIP shoppers cards. One club I didn’t sign up for was the cancer club.
This club is one you really don’t want to voluntary sign up
for, its generally free, the merchandise sucks and they don’t hold great Christmas
parties…. Ohhh and the only free coffees you get generally come with a side
dose of Chemo….. It’s a pretty shit club.
Sadly 1 in 3 people in New Zealand have some association
with this club. It’s a club that once
you have joined (like it or not), that you will forever have some link to it
whether you like it or not.This week is daffodil week (Friday is Daffodil day), a week that is the annual fundraiser for the NZ cancer society. For me this week means acknowledgement, not just of a particular cancer but acknowledgement about cancer itself, how it affects everyone - and not just the person with the cancer. It’s about families and friends, they too are forced to be part of the cancer club as well.
This last two weeks has also marked the start of my journey of post cancer scanning and checking, I’ve had my bloods done and my markers are still showing that I’m in normal levels (yes, people I have a piece of paper to say I’m actually “normal”!... I know I’m confused, and slightly amused as well!!) – they have dropped to 0.7 from the 1.0 they were a few months ago… I’m quite happy with the dropping of numbers – that’s a good thing!
Being part of the cancer club means that even though I’ve
finished my treatment and no longer have cancer, I still need to be regularly
checked, for the next 3 years I will have scans, tests, exams and bloods done
every 6 months, then after 3 years I go
to yearly checks for the next 3 years. So even though it’s gone physically, I’m
reminded constantly that it can come back (although my odds are pretty good
that it won’t), it’s kind of like a ghost dog (this will be another post for
another day)… lurking in the darkness….
I’ve done my dog training, I’m pretty good at it, so it should beware if
it thinks about stepping over the line.
I’ve decided that whilst I don’t have a choice regrading
being part of this club, I will still express my displeasure at being part of
it… “cancer club” …. you can stick your membership card and renewal form!
Wow you have penned yourself a story to be told amazing
ReplyDeleteThank you, its funny how its all come together, when I started writing, I never thought it would come out like this. :-)
DeleteCancer Club is spot on ,thanks for sharing
ReplyDeleteThanks for reading Michelle :-)
ReplyDelete