From https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/battle-ready/id1777895588?i=1000680976939 also available Battle Ready

“Hello and welcome, I’m Ciara Morrison. This is Battle Ready, and I wanna talk about this last week in a little bit more detail today. This is a more or less unscheduled update.

So why would I be doing this? Well, yesterday was a day that I decided to take off of life. I basically turned off my phone, didn’t really respond to any emails or messages.

I put the TV on, I ordered a lot of chocolate, and I basically stayed at home. Now, for those of you who know me, you know that that is not like me at all. And furthermore, I decided yesterday was going to be a day of absolutely no training.

And for once, that didn’t kill me. So why? Let’s get into it.

For those of you who know me, you will know that I’ve been a cancer warrior for the last year and a half, almost two years, when I was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. My world came crashing down. This isn’t going to be an update about that, though, because I want to talk about what happened on Tuesday.”

“And I really want to reach out to those who are supporting people going through challenges, like the one that I’ve been in and find myself in, and will have for the rest of my life. So basically, on Tuesday, I had a meeting with my doctor. It was scheduled.

Ahead of this, I went and had a scan. The scan was a full torso scan, and it came at the end of both chemo and immunotherapy. So let’s just set the scene.

It’s Tuesday. I’ve told my husband, I don’t want to go into the hospital with a big posse. I’m just going to go in on my own.

I sent him off to work. I jumped on the train. The train was late.

TFL decided to try and spike me, as they usually do. I got out at King’s Cross, ran up the road. So I arrived in to UCLH Cancer Care Center.

Quite, quite red a face, I would say. And thinking, right, the first place I need to go to is actually where they take your observations. So they were going to take, you know, temperature, blood pressure, urine sample, and all of that kind of good stuff.

Now, I know myself that that urine sample has been a challenge for me. So I came ready and prepared, did that, sat in the chair, and the very nice nurse who was looking at me was kind of laughing to herself. He’s kind of saying, why, why are you in this state?

And I said, look, I’m really sorry. I was late. I pretty much ran up the road.

I can’t remember the name of that big road. Is it Houston Road? It might well be.

I can’t remember. I ran the whole way, got there, checked in, went upstairs, sat in her chair, having given my urine sample. And she just looked at me and she said, your heart rate’s gonna be through the roof.

It actually wasn’t too bad. Anyway, so I’m in the middle of all of this. And why is this such a big deal?

Well, this is the big meeting. This is the meeting that kind of really says, is there anything in the scan, and what’s the blood saying? Now, up until this point, my blood had been pretty good, but I hadn’t really done a scan in a while.

“The last scan threw up an anomaly that meant it needed to be redone. So I came into this whole process a little bit nervous. Anyway, so I’m in the middle of all of this.

I’m having a lovely conversation with my nurse, and around the corner comes my doctor. Now, my doctor is probably one of the coolest women I’ve ever met. She’s a endurance, not endurance, what do they call it?

An ultramarathon runner. And she’s pretty special. And I’ve never seen her flustered.

She’s always on time. And she came looking for me, and I thought, okay, that cannot be good. Anyway, she looked pretty frazzled.

And so I said, oh, I just need to get my blood pressure taken. She said, okay, come and find me. I’m on the other side. “She gave me the room number, took my blood pressure. Blood pressure was actually fine, which I was a bit surprised at, to be very honest. I thought, okay, it’s gonna be high because I’ve run all this way, but nope, it was fine.

So come out of there, go around the corridor, and I’ve got a cup of coffee. I’ve got my jacket. I’ve got my bag.

I’ve got a book that I’m reading. Actually, very good book. I’ll talk about that later.

And I go, and she again comes and finds me. And I’m thinking, oh my gosh, what is going on? And she said, no, no, Ciara, everything’s fine.

Everything’s fine. I just have a student here. She’s gonna leave shortly.

I wanted her to see you because I wanted to bring her up to speed on your case. Fine. So I can take a little bit of a breath.

I sit down, and she tells me everything’s fine. Your scan is clear. Your bloods are clear.”

“She said, we can move you now to seeing us every three months. And actually, you’ll only see me every six months. The entire meeting took three minutes, but that’s not what I want to talk about today.

So obviously, I was delighted. What followed is one of the things that I think people struggle with, and people maybe don’t understand. And I’m gonna get into that in a little bit more detail, and maybe share a little bit about what I’ve been feeling in the last sort of 24, 36 hours.

So take a breath, get a cup of coffee, pause, because the next part’s gonna be the sharing bit. Well, I’ve got my coffee as well, so I’m ready to go. So that meeting, three minutes later, I am in the middle of UCLH, and I’ve got a list of people to call, right?”

“I’ve got the people who have supported me, and I’ve got social media, and I’ve been very open and vocal about what I’ve been going through, so I wanted to make sure everybody knew what was happening, and everybody had wished me the best. I came out, to be fair, I was in a bit of a faff, because I, again, bad coat, all that kind of stuff. I was trying to figure out how to put everything together.

And I put my cup of coffee down, and I just took the biggest breath. Because I had only planned up until that meeting. I hadn’t planned of anything beyond that.

I thought, okay, if it’s bad news, here’s how I’m going to react. If it’s good news, I kind of didn’t really think about it, but you just want to get the meeting done, right? And I was upstairs in the Macmillan Center, UCLH, and I put my cup of coffee down, and I just took a deep, deep breath.

One of those breaths that goes right into your core. And I thought, okay, so we’ve, we’re going in the right direction. We’ve, we’ve got time.”

“I know that sounds really morbid, but that’s kind of what you think about when you’re going through all of this. I rang my husband, and he said, you don’t, you don’t sound like as if you’re on, on a high. I rang some of the people, and I said, I’m a bit numb.

I was really numb. And I decided to walk. So I walked to, to King’s Cross.

I went to St. Pancras, and I had the lunch that I always have every time I’ve gone to the hospital. And then I thought, okay, I, nobody’s with me. I was then regretting sending my husband to work.

I thought, actually, if he was with me, we could have done something. But I felt empty. I didn’t feel guilt.

I didn’t feel happy. I didn’t feel sad. I didn’t feel anything.

And I walked. And I don’t know what direction I took. I kept making rights and lefts and just whatever felt interesting.

I looked for a few blue plaques. For those of you not from London, the blue plaques are basically where maybe significant people have lived in London. I didn’t find anybody really interesting.”

“But I wasn’t really paying attention. I got a coffee along the way just to kind of, well, actually to keep my hands warm, if I’m being honest. And that’s when it kind of started.

A malaise, a kind of this feeling that, okay, I’m not out of the woods. I’m definitely not discharged. I definitely can’t say I’m in remission or anything like that.

It’s under control and we need to watch it because the kind of cancer I have is triggered by hormones, but for now we’re good. And it’s a big relief and it means the chemo has done a lot of its work. And for now, we’re in control.

It means I can breathe. It means I have more time. The messages that followed were of all of them, all of them, all of them, from of the best of intentions.

But I couldn’t answer them. I couldn’t really talk to people. I couldn’t reach out.

I wanted to be with people, but I didn’t want to talk. I didn’t want to share what I was going through. And it was funny because my husband came home, and I’d bought the…”

“I went into a very well-known chocolate retailer, handed them my credit card, and basically walked off with a lot of chocolate, came home, put the TV on, sat down, and he said, you know what? I thought you’d be out, not doing things. And I couldn’t.

I couldn’t. And we were watching a TV program about the UK sports stars and sports star of the year. Well done, Keely, by the way.

Very well deserved. And great run. Great run.

And then the tears started. They’d started earlier, but I managed to just about keep them under control on Tottenham Court Road. The tears started that night, and they were proper big girl tears, like really grown up, proper body tears as I was eating my chocolate.”

“And it was relief, but it was everything exiting my body all at the same time. It was just a huge deluge and realization of the stress that I’d felt and feel for so long. And I think that’s one of the things that those around people who are going through this might struggle to understand.

Now, bless him, I love my husband to pieces, but he said, maybe you should speak to somebody and maybe they can fix what’s going on. Now, I’m a psychologist, and I was very quick to kind of bite back, which I regretted later, but say, nothing’s wrong with me. You don’t need to fix me.

I don’t need fixing. This is what going through the various, you know, elements of grief and grievance, and coming to terms with things. And I don’t want to get technical and go through all of that.

That’s for another podcast. His initial, he’s an engineer, right? So his initial approach was, I need to fix her.”

“Nobody needed to fix me. I just needed to kind of go through it. And I think that’s hard for people who are on the outside, who love us, people who are going through stuff like this, and they want to help.

And I kind of just said, look, just leave me be. I just need to go through this. I’ll be fine in a few days.

I’m fine today, by the way. I’ve had a massive workout this morning, and I’m feeling myself getting back to myself. I won’t say that’s normal.

It’s normal for me. It’s maybe not normal for everyone in society and all of that, but it’s normal for me. But I needed to go through that, and I feel stronger for it.

I did take yesterday off of life, and I’m the better for it. But it is hard, and people can be a little bit tentative around you, and it’s okay to ask. Not to kind of, how do I fix you?

I’d maybe steer away from that question, bless him, but what can I do? And if the answer is nothing, then the answer is nothing. You’re off the hook.”

“Leave that person be. And maybe just check in, and you’ll know yourself if you need to kind of prod and push a little bit. And that’s really all I wanted to jump on it today and say, is that I’m very happy I got to the diagnosis that I have this week, that we’re going the right way.

Not out of the woods, but things are going the right way. Means I’m gonna be around for another little while. That’s, I know people get, kind of think that’s a bit morbid, but you think about these things when you’re going through everything that I’ve gone through.

It means I can now reset. I’ve got a journal, and it’s quite fitting. I spoke to my sister earlier on today, and I said, look, it’s quite fitting.

I finished one journal. She got me a new journal. And actually, this journal is nicer.

It’s hardback. It’s shiny. It’s new.

And I’m going to love filling that in. I like stickers and, you know, all the things that make me happier. Stickers and fountain pens and writing things and recording things and leaving something behind.”

“So that was the real message today, was that it’s not always the reaction you expect. I’m not going to be out dancing and thanking various lords or whatever for the fact that I’m here. I’m incredibly grateful to medicine and to everybody that has supported me, both medically and emotionally and physically and psychologically over the last while.

You guys know exactly who you are. And my ladies in Germany and Canada, I love you so much. You’ve been my absolute bedrock.

But it’s okay to feel something that maybe people can’t understand. And feel it. Just feel it.

But I like to document it so I can look over it afterwards and really think about whether or not I can equate that to what the psychology tells us. And I know what I’m going through, which is the other part of it. I just I couldn’t verbalize it to my husband, which was the interesting thing.

Most of you know that I do like to talk. So I think that also worried him that I was a little bit quiet. So that’s my main point for today.

It’s okay. It’s absolutely okay. And today is a better day”

“We’re running into Christmas and New Year and all of those celebrations, which I’m very much looking forward to. And now I need to plan for my future, for the next three months, until we see where we are. And that’s the new normal.

And that’s okay. And as always, you know, I’ve said, I will answer any questions. I will share, because I think it might help people.

I hope it’s helping somebody. It’s helping me. Just recording this is helping me a lot.

So that was it. I’ve gone through my crying, my chocolate eating. Oh, I missed the chocolate eating, but it’s not good for you.

Lying on the couch, watching TV, and yeah, playing computer games. It was a wonderful day. Not one that I could do every day, but for the day that it was, it was brilliant.”

From Battle Ready: Clear Scans, Crappy Feels: The Rollercoaster of Cancer Wins and Woes, 19 Dec 2024
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/battle-ready/id1777895588?i=1000680976939&r=886