The 4th of February marks World Cancer Day. This is a subject that is very close to my heart after losing both my brother and my mother to cancer, so I wanted to let you all know to raise a bit of awareness.
I used to think that Cancer was something that affected other people and other families but in 2002 when I was in hospital having Miss Frugal, my brother found out that he had mouth cancer. What followed was a two year battle against the disease that finally defeated him in September 2004. It was heartbreaking to see and I thought I would never feel that sort of pain again but then in the September of the following year my mam found out that she had cancer of the oesophagus. The cancer was very advanced by the time she was diagnosed as the doctors thought that her symptoms were caused by stress and grief and she passed away in November, just two months after finding out that she had the disease.
Cancer affects everyone differently, my brother was very brave and battled it to the last. He never let on how bad it was and even when he only had weeks left and was moved to a local hospice, he tried to tell us it was so they could administer a different form of pain relief…. He kept it to himself to make it easier for us. He left behind a little boy, aged 4 at the time, and he just in case he wasn’t around to see him grow up he wrote him a story about his battle against cancer. The story was published on line with a quote about why he wrote it,
Originally posted by Alan:
The main reason that I wrote about my experiences was so that when my son Ryan grows up, he can better understand what happened to his Daddy. It was also written so in case I wasn’t around when he grew up, it would help Angela explain what had happened to me and why Ryan no longer had a Daddy. I’ve always used the title “A story for Ryan” in typing up my experiences and would like it to be continually known as that.
The story is heartbreaking to read and although I have it saved and printed out, I still can’t bear to read it again.
My mam was never the same after my brother died, it was like she died inside too, the night he passed away, my dad rang me and I could hear her screaming in the background, absolutely devastated.
When my mam got took into hospital near the end of her thankfully short battle, she was like a different person, angry at what had happened to her I suppose. I couldn’t bear to see her like that and I tried to put off visiting her, I didn’t want to admit to myself what was happening and then she died one night, the night before I was going to visit her. I can’t tell you the number of times I have wished I could go back and see her before she died to tell her how much I loved her and how thankful I was that she was my mam.
I miss them both every day and even though she was only 3 when her Nana died, Miss Frugal still has such good memories of her that she will talk about her quite a bit and occasionally cry that she is no longer with us. She also has a photo of her on her bedside table, she found it ages ago and asked if she could have it and won’t have it moved now.
If I can raise awareness of World Cancer Day in any way, then I am happy to do so. There must be a cure for this horrible disease, we just have to look hard enough and if whatever the cost to do that – surely, its a price we are all willing to pay.
I would give every penny that I have to get my family back.
