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Introduction
Cancer touches the lives of countless numbers of people – sufferers and those who suffer because they are forced to bear witness to the suffering cancer causes. No one emerges unscathed.
Cancer is a cruel disease. Almost as cruel is the conventional wisdom and etiquette that dictates how cancer victims and those closest to them are expected to behave in the face of its onslaught. It is embedded into our psyche that strength, stoicism or spirituality are the faces we show against this evil. Society lauds those who are courageous and brave in their battles with cancer, labelling them heroes.
Falling prey to the fear and strong emotions cancer invokes is seen as giving in. Controlling your emotions is equated to controlling the ravages of the disease. Any overt signs or intimations of weakness are generally frowned upon.
Talking openly and intimately about cancer and how it affects your life is too confronting for most people to bear. People are frightened by the strength of the emotions invoked. When pain and grief become palpable many people shy away, helpless in the face of it. Relationships and conversations become superficial, skirting the uncomfortable realities so as not to offend anyone’s sensibilities. The truth of how we really think and feel is hidden from the light of day, often festering in the dark like the cancer itself.
Cancer is confronting. It strikes at the heart and mind as much as the body. Life approximates a seesaw swinging wildly from one dichotomy to the other and back again. The natural rhythm and equilibrium of living is shattered. So too is your sense of personal safety and control over your life. Life becomes simpler yet infinitely more complex as all the normal signposts of living appear as if in a foreign language. Confusion can become blinding clarity. Hopelessness can beget hope. In the midst of crisis can come calm. Pain and pleasure are often found together in the simplest of pastimes – holding hands, sharing a meal or working in the garden. The pleasure of the moment can turn into the pain of loss in the blink of an eye.
The conscious and the unconscious mind continue to operate simultaneously but often on opposing wavelengths. Life can feel alternately precious and worthless. And, from the depths of ugliness and despair, inspiration and beauty can emerge.
There is an overwhelming sense of aloneness and isolation that defies even the closest of relationships and the genuine support of the people who rally around in a crisis. Being constrained, not able to share what you are thinking and feeling, especially with those you love deeply, is cruel, almost as cruel as cancer itself.
Everyone, at some stage in their lives, will be confronted by someone close to them having cancer. It often happens when we least expect it and are rarely prepared for it. It was our turn when my husband Rex was diagnosed with melanoma in 2001. Only now, do I feel able to share my journey, the hidden journey.
This journey was played out on the pages of my journals, in my morning pages, a term that came from Julia Cameron’s book, The Artist’s Way. These are three pages of longhand writing, strictly stream of consciousness. These pages are then tucked away until later, not to be shared.
I started keeping a journal seven weeks before the melanoma was diagnosed. It was something I warmed to. I would wake in the early morning, grab a cup of tea or coffee, and go back to bed to write.
Our main bedroom was upstairs. Two large windows looked out over our bushy back garden to the expanse of sky beyond. Our second bedroom downstairs was used less often. It had a closer, yet still bushy, outlook to the front garden, the reserve and the dawn sky.
Mostly, I would write in the mornings, but at times, I would go back to my journal later in the day or evening if I had something I wanted to say. I loved my life and I loved my garden and I loved writing about them.
Meeting the day was inevitably part of my writing. I felt intimately and inextricably connected to the natural environment recording the impact of the weather and the changing seasons on the garden, on our lives and us. My thoughts and feelings were allowed free reign to spill out onto the page.
As the melanoma invaded our lives, it was here my fears and emotions were writ large. It was here I cried out. It was here I tried to come to terms with the horrors the melanoma brought to our lives and our relationship. It was here I tried to right my world by writing. It was only here I could tell the intimate truth of what was happening to me, to us.
This is a personal memoir about love and the healing power of that love when cancer came into our lives. When cancer strikes it changes your life, but it doesn’t change who you are. Your essence remains. The paradox is that although you are the same person you are indelibly and irrevocably changed.
This book springs from a selection of edited excerpts from my journals, emails and letters from 23 February 2001 to 2 October 2005, and from a detailed medical file kept by Rex covering a similar period.
Introducing
THE FAMILY
Rex Husband of Christine
Christine Wife of Rex (Chris)
Mum Mother of Christine, Aileen, Laurel and Denise
Mother in law to Rex
Aileen Christine’s sister, sister in law to Rex (Ails)
Tony Aileen’s husband, brother in law to Christine and Rex
THE FAMILY PETS
Lewis Ageing male Airedale terrier
Peedee Ageing female Airedale terrier
THE FRIENDS
Col Close friend of Chris and Rex, husband of Joy
Joy Close friend of Chris and Rex, wife of Col
THE HEALERS
Gregory Mr Gregory Nicolau Psychologist
David Dr David Lester General Practitioner
Andrew Mr Andrew Cavallo Plastic Surgeon
Phil Dr Phillip Parente Medical Oncologist
THE SETTINGS
Number twenty-three Paradise
Sea House, Apollo Bay Paradise by the Sea
Westerfolds Park Templestowe
THE MEDICAL INSTITUTIONS
Warringal Private Hospital Heidelberg
Austin and Repatriation Medical Centre Heidelberg
The Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research
Austin Health Heidelberg
St Vincents and Mercy Private Hospital East Melbourne
Epworth Eastern Hospital Box Hill
The Alfred Hospital Prahran
1. Paradise under threat
Friday 23/2/01
