Cancer is a guest, it walks into the room and changes the whole milieu. It can turn life into a pity part, a battle, a comedy sketch, a medical parade.

It can turn your friends into blithering idiots and you into a warrior one moment, a child the next. It can make or break your partner who may turn coward or shine as hero. It can send love running or bond you like star crossed lovers on the last night of the Titanic.

It can bring the martyrs and narcissists swanning out of their dust closets having to drop by to gush their hugs, kisses and white light at you whilst using their pet name for your husband and taking the opportunity to surreptitiously remind him how this creature is ‘right there for him – oops, yeah, both of you’ right now in your hour of need. It can bring out the vultures and turn ordinary every day folk into angels.

It can feel surreal like a TV episode you got stuck in. It can be like a dog just behind you, growling, which commands you become a Buddha to stay balanced and focused. It can be a bullshit magnet, attracting recommendations to spend the low income you have remaining on some self made guru selling belly button lint imbued with magical powers from the angelic realms. It can make all your friends psychic because they suddenly know everything’s gonna be ‘just great’, or they become the ‘invisible man’, sending you white light or energy or other impractical intangibles whilst they keep away from you during these ‘rainy days’.

But during my cancer journey I said some funky things:

If personality could kill cancer, mine’s already dead.

My cancer is only 3cms tall. I’m 160cm tall

When I knew I’d have a breast removed, and then in time probably both, I resolved that breasts are what others fixate on when they are too shallow to look for or appreciate personality.

I came to terms with losing the breast and that I’d ultimately lose the other by focusing on practicality. Nobody had really ever opened a door, answered the phone, replied to an email or held a conversation using a breast.

the night I had my left breast removed I introduced each side of my chest to my husband and pals: Flatsy Patsy on the left, One Booby Ruby on the right.

Since mastectomy of my left breast, my heart is even closer when I’m hugging my husband

I didn’t lose my left breast, I returned to my original model before the addition of the optional extras.

When a friend told me about silicone implants I said, when you were 9 you probably admired breasted women and thought you’d grow up to be like them. When I was 9 I ran around topless in the inner city, had no strong sense of my own gender and mused that when I grew up I might be a rabbit, or a cat, or the wind, or a cloud, or….

When I came home as a one tit woman, I went out with my friend to by mastectomy clothing. I turned down everything that was made for tits and chose tit-neutral clothing that captured my greatest asset – my personality.

When I got my Berlei bra with a breast prothesis, my brain lost its phantom nipple syndrome. It was as if it breathed a sigh of relief saying, “I knew our tit would come back”.

When I learned I had a 3.2cm and a 3.5cm lump in my uterus as well I contemplated that if these turned out to be cancer that I’d have to have a hysterectomy on top of my mastectomy. I also had to also find out if the 0.6cm lesion on my liver was only a cyst. And I still had the colonoscopy to get through. I figured livers regenerate so we can throw out most of it if necessary. I didn’t need my uterus. I could even get by without most of my colon if necessary. My other breast could go. Then I figured they could fill up the abdominal cavities with polystyrene balls and call me a bean bag.

I figured that at 47 my breasts and uterus were basically ornamental, so if necessary, we could go minimalist and clear out the ornaments.

The most important accessory for a bald head is a great personality.

How am I gonna do cancer? Like I rose beyond abuse, neglect, trauma… like I tackled Immune Deficiencies… like I tackled Agnosias and meaning deafness and meaning blindness… like I did language processing disorder and autism… like I tackled Exposure Anxiety, and Tourettes, and OCD, and Exposure Anxiety, and Bipolar, … like I tackled homelessness, poverty, sexploitation… like I tackled illiteracy, innumeracy…. like I tackled DID…. I’m gonna do it beautifully, powerfully, with endurance and focus and resolve and grace… I’m gonna do it like Titanic. And I won’t go down with the ship. I’m gonna be Rose, clinging to a floating door on the icy ocean, then rescued by a rescue ship as my tits, my perhaps even my uterus, parts of my liver and colon potentially sink, leaving me living with the loss, but living.

UPDATE:
the uterus issue turned out to only be fibroids, the liver issue just cysts.
Entered chemo for stray cancer cells from the breast cancer after the oncologist and further testing on the tumor revealed a 25% chance of secondaries from stray cells.
Will finish chemo hopefully by Dec this year (2011). Then second mastectomy as the other breast risks restarting the process even after chemo.
But all in all, still think its a good life and not waiting until ‘after all this’, I’m making the most of every day.

Donna Williams, BA Hons, Dip Ed.
Author, artist, singer-songwriter, screenwriter.
Autism consultant and public speaker.
http://www.donnawilliams.net

I acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the Traditional Owners of this country throughout Australia, and their connection to land and community.