First, I want to thank the many people who have posted such thoughtful comments to this blog. I’ve been a bit overwhelmed, though not surprised, by people’s generosity (again and again, cancer has revealed to me the kindness of strangers as well as friends). To my embarrassment, I haven’t been able to get my login details to work, so haven’t posted replies. I will certainly reply to several people’s kind suggestions once I figure out how to do so. (BMJ help!)<\/p>\n
Second, I’ve been slow to blog due to an eventful week. The son of a close friend was one of six young people killed in a boating accident last week on Sydney harbour, just below Taronga Park Zoo. Earlier that day, I had remarked to another friend that there are many people concerned for me living with advanced cancer. But, because I know a lot of people, by chance alone a few will probably die before me. And now this. I guess we’re all in a state of shock.<\/p>\n
It brought home (again) how Shakespearian-fickle life is – I really<\/em> don’t know what’s coming next. I had no idea I would get Stage IV breast cancer – that was what unfortunate young women got, not me! And tonight, I am alive while my young friend is dead. It made me reflect, again, how lucky I’ve been – I’m already twice his age. I have travelled the world, married happily and had every job I ever really wanted – all before I was 40. Maybe I wasn’t ambitious enough. But it was enough for me. I don’t want readers to think that I’m not interested in (many!) more years of life. But I was struck, again, by how happy I am, already, with what I’ve been dealt. More would be great, but not essential to being happy now. I hope I see Vietnam and Iceland, but it will hardly be a tragedy if I don’t.<\/p>\n No doubt, I’d prefer quality and <\/em>quantity. But more life is just more – and how much more do you need? – in this horrifically banal age of eat till you drop because there’s nothing else to do: 1000 films to see before you die! 1000 albums to listen to! 1000 destinations to visit! 1000 books to read! Eat! Eat! I feel tired thinking about it, like some kind of laboratory rat. (I know about such things. My engineer-uncle used to design rat cages for the psychology department. No matter how many pellets they’d already eaten, the rats would keep pressing the food lever like demented – well – rats. My job, aged 3\u00bd, was to let them run around inside my playpen on the lawn, which involved several mass break-outs and a lot of scrabbling beneath azalea bushes to retrieve them before the kookaburras did).<\/p>\n Of course it’s nonsense – worse – sacrilegious – to suggest that life is a rat’s cage. From where I stand now, I would argue that life is absolutely sacred. More life means time with people I love: my husband; my parents; my brother’s family. For these people alone, never mind my extended family and dear friends I will do whatever I can to live longer. It’s just that if quantity isn’t<\/em> possible, as it wasn’t for my young friend, then you want to know that you’ve jolly well made the most of what you have. That was all very well. I didn’t die. I kept living, with the scary knowledge that it really, really matters how you live. So it’s not OK to shop till I drop. It’s not OK to sow misery and depression among others. It’s not OK to sit like a blob waiting for – what? Death? More treatment? Godot? Which is why I spend most days reading, reading, talking, blogging trying to make something of this time, however long I’ve got. Rubbing off a few more rough edges. Taking a brush to my more desultory habits without becoming a prude (unlikely) or a moralist (eminently possible; please God and Readers strike me down if I start to sound like one). Making meaning in the now, for the now – probably the only life insurance policy I’m able to have. It’ll do me just fine.<\/p>\n Anna’s 4th blog: Wednesday, 07 May 2008<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" First, I want to thank the many people who have posted such thoughtful comments to this blog. I’ve been a bit overwhelmed, though not surprised, by people’s generosity (again and again, cancer has revealed to me the kindness of strangers as well as friends). To my embarrassment, I haven’t been able to get my login […]<\/p>\n
\nEarly last year, I woke up in University College Hospital after the day of tests which revealed the extensive nature of the cancer. I remember laughing at myself because of the relief I felt that all the youthful angst and navel gazing was <\/em>worth it: the therapy, the workshops, the earnest conversations, the meditation, the reading – because I could honestly die free and peaceful, if that was my lot, at the ripe old age of 40. I hadn’t lived a perfect life by a very <\/em>long shot, but I’d honestly tried to work away at those parts of me that left me (and others) less than impressed. Not that I’d always succeeded. But at least I knew I’d tried pretty much as hard as I could and the relationships that really mattered to me were in reasonably good shape.<\/p>\n