Lesson #3 | Not everybody is lucky enough to get cancer*

I was reflecting on why, of all the adversities, the telling of the cancer story is the one that keeps surfacing. I think it's because it's life threatening. It takes life, and without life you cannot rise. It was aiming at mine.

Many of the people that I have met throughout my life have said that cancer was the best thing that happened to them. I am not there yet. I accept with humility the lessons it has given to me – but I would take less learning any day. That’s just me.

What I did learn was that I was lucky to have a disease that had the support of the community, people walking for it, funds raised, research advancing, and critically it was not something I need to be ashamed off. My hair loss made it visible to others that I was going through a tough time. It gave me access to social support. To an outpouring of care.

Not all human struggle is visible. So many of us walk alone in the darkness of our pain. Whether it be physical, mental health, loneliness… or other. I learnt this lesson in quick succession to the cancer battle. When my hair started to grow back and I was no longer visibly sick, but got hit by the weight of the Post Cancer Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. It was crushing both physically and mentally. I thought I was close to returning to life, then...I wasn't.

Chronic Fatigue is an invisible illness. It's less known. You look like everyone else. Just tired. I learnt first hand, how pain that is invisible to others impacts the empathy and support available. Today I walk with more gentleness to my fellow humans and our personal invisible injuries. That is how I learnt, that many of us are not lucky enough to get cancer.

*I have lost too many beautiful people to this disease to minimise the deadliness of this disease. Please accept this statement as it is intended, an introspection to what we notice socially as illness.