The BC (Before Cancer, you will soon get the hang of it) seems so far away now I'm onto my second life but that doesn't mean it isn't still a huge part of who I am and it's almost as if the first life was required to get me through what is now. soo who was I? I was a reiki practitioner, a massage therapist, a reflexologist, an ayurvedic therapist, a hairstylist, a mother, a friend, a daughter, and a misfit. But mainly I believed I was happy. I definitely loved my boys, sod that they are currently 26 and 21 they will always be my boys (said in a very east end Peggy Mitchell style) and I am also in awe of the men they have become through my diagnosis but that's for another story. I was living with my youngest son, Keane, Zane had already managed to escape my overbearing mother hugs to go make a pigsty in his own little home and I was making the most of the time to smother the second-born before he also left home to go to university and I would finally have that thing Id always wanted.... a clean house!! trust me anyone who dreams of the same dream I had It is not what you think, the loneliness, the tears. the meals for one...... what am I saying?? totally telling a lie it was awesome! clean house, food in the fridge and not becoming a science experiment under his bed and all the glasses back in the cupboard, it was friggin awesome! and I had a business I was proud of, working every hour I could, I loved my job and with Keane now at Uni, I had all the time to me to work whenever I wanted. I think one of the reasons I loved my job so much was my belief in holistics, and thanks to the big universe surrounding us I did because I'm telling you I think id have gone off at the deep end at the beginning of the second life if it hadn't been for this. and when your in that kind of profession you have friends that are in the same profession and those little gurus wrapped their crystal and healing wings around me and have been there for me every step of the way altho they do seem to like giving out the tough love as well the little shits!
So there I was working hard and enjoying being a grown-up and all independent woman sort of thing. Because I only had my diva dog to rush home to I literally filled my day with work, gym, seeing friends, yoga, meditate oh and the thing I had been really good at, totally ignoring that recurrent glute pain that started life number 2. Friends constantly reminded me I was still limping or my new favourite way of getting around, walking on my tiptoe. Even now while I'm writing this I'm shaking my head saying "absolutely crazy". I continued to turn up for my PT sessions, the poor guy asking every week "is that leg better yet?" I remember I had started to end nights out earlier, the pain was getting too much, no amount of gin was sorting it out. I just didn't want it to interfere with my life anymore. I was hopping around my treatment couch for god's sake, what an example of a professional massage therapist. I remember having an appointment with the musculoskeletal clinic and I had convinced myself that it was now sciatica and this person would stick a needle in and all would be grand. So I'm hobbling into the clinic putting all my faith in this needle, I had a date lined up a few days later and I was determined I wanted to sashay into the bar in my 4" heels, giving it my all. Instead, I came face to face with the first in a line of concerned faces I would experience during those first months of appointments, scans, biopsies. This face said cinderella was not going to no bar in her 4" ooh so sassy shoes, from that point on it was flats, That day until literally 3 weeks later I call the Transition Time. That first life was ending, and the new one was about to begin.
So now we are in the second life, and to be honest I kind of like it. Yes, it's hard, it's painful, it's scary and sometimes it's so lonely especially when I disappear into my own head. But this new life has taught me so much that I never thought id be capable of doing. I mean come on most of you at some point have heard of a friend who got to party with the "Big C" and we have sat there with our other friends going quiet into that scary place and thought "I couldn't imagine it, I don't think I could do it" but you do and I do. This second life has bought me some awesome new cancer friends, it brought me a new level of respect for my body (let's not count the steroid months, and sugar addiction, man those jeans were tight!) but it also brought me an opportunity to look at life in a very different way to what I did before. It was Mark Twain who said - "The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why". I'm finding out why and also how that first life was preparation for this one. So many things that mattered before are now a shrug of the shoulders, friends that you never imagined not having in your life are no longer there and those that were just acquaintances stood up and showed their support. I used to be obsessed with time, had to know what time it was and then would look again in case id seen it wrong, now the time is about how I feel and what I want to do to make me feel good. Yeah, I think i like some of this second life, its pretty good Although if someone could just get rid of this cancer for me it would be perfect!
Namastay safe my friends 🙏🏻
Allana x
