Cancer 139

I am the last of my childhood nuclear family. We were two parents, one son and one daughter; it was pretty traditional. My parents died old, my dad at 93, my mum at 85, so no complaints there, but my sister Helen died last year of cancer at 63. When you are in your 60s, 63 is not very old; it is a premature death. Coping with my own diagnosis of cancer and operation, I failed to mourn the loss of my sister, who died at the same time. I have wondered why but put it down to my own troubles. Recently, I have found myself grieving a little, I don’t think it is because of Helen but the loss of my original nuclear family as a whole.

The family was the core of my existence for the first 20 years of my life. We lived together, ate together, went on holiday together, and watched telly together. Like most people, I gradually extended my life outside with friends and eventually moved out to develop my own relationships, and so on. All perfectly normal and nothing to shout about, so why only now am I grieving for the loss of this nuclear family? Have I only just realised its importance, its centrality to growing up, to me being who I am? I had a happy childhood, idyllic in memory. I have never thought otherwise. So what has changed?

Perhaps it is me. I have developed through the course of my illness. While at the start, I could only focus on my death, it has now gone on so long (sorry for boring you with so many blogs over so long a time) that my mind has naturally started to reflect on other things. I generally feel reasonably well, so I can look backwards in new ways, I can risk the potential psychological dangers of reflection.

Perhaps the bigger question is why I am not grieving my sister and instead grieving my nuclear family. Is it the relationship (or lack of) that I had with her? Is it the timing? Is it her dying of that dreaded disease cancer? I don’t know, but the mind works in complicated ways.

I am due to meet the consultant tomorrow, the actual consultant. A rare experience. I am hoping for two things, that I am well enough to have treatment next week – my 25th as you are asking. I should celebrate and perhaps get a badge, as you do when donating blood – and that I can then take a break from treatment to go on holiday to Germany. The main problem is that my skin infection is back. It was severe enough to delay treatment a few months ago. I am busy scrubbing my face and applying udder cream to improve my look and hope no one notices. It is not as bad as it was, but it is worse because large parts of my body itch terribly, and inevitably, I can’t stop scratching. I don’t like delays in my treatment.