Long before COVID, the ‘big C’ meant cancer. Before the COVID conspiracy theories, there were the cancer conspiracy theories.
Once you are diagnosed, you see cancer everywhere - in endless news articles, adverts and fundraisers. It feels like a tidal wave and it is overwhelming.
No one who is diagnosed with cancer escapes well-meaning friends offering advice at best and sending you crackpot theories at worst. Now if I am ever asked for advice from people diagnosed with cancer I always say ‘don’t Google’. But of course you do and usually at your darkest times.
Making decisions
As a cancer patient, you are suddenly faced with difficult and life-changing decisions. When I signed my chemotherapy consent form, one of the side effects listed was death. Do you really consent to that? Do you have a choice?
Just when you feel at your most vulnerable and compromised you are targeted by people who think a vegan diet and green smoothies are the better option and that conventional treatment is a ‘big pharma’ conspiracy. No one wants to have their body trashed by chemotherapy, especially when you are young and strong. People who criticise the decision you make are taking advantage of the terrible choices you have to make.
I remember being on the tube and breaking down in tears having read an article on my phone about how chemotherapy could be better targeted and fewer patients might need it. It was too late for me as I had already lost my fertility, strength, job and relationship but most of all my confidence in my body. I couldn’t stop myself from sobbing as I wept for everything I had lost, all because of this one little article on a newspaper’s website.