August 28 2017 - I'm 23, lying in a hospital bed recovering from surgery. Surprisingly, things are looking up for me, the chronic pain I'd been in for the passed two months is gone, I'd just landed a full time job helping children with disabilities, I was exercising with a personal trainer and working up to my first fight as an amatuer boxer. I’m fit, I don't drink alcohol or coffee, I don't smoke, I have a balanced diet. Surgery was a bump in the road, I'll be back on my feet soon enough.
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My life was just beginning.
August 29 2017 - I'm 23, and I've just been diagnosed with bowel cancer. Stage III bowel cancer. I'm 23. The oncologist comes in and starts going through the plan for the coming weeks, no, months, no, years.
When does it end? is all that's on my mind. When am I going to be healthy again?
October 3 2017- Chemotherapy starts.
Slowly the chemo takes away everything I enjoy about life. The neuropathy makes me afraid to leave my bed and stops me from drinking. The nausea makes eating hard. The fatigue makes me pass out. My skin on my hands and feet blisters and dies. I don't have fingerprints now.
My life as I know it stops.
April 26 2018- It's morning, I've had an interesting 48 hours. My friend is in hospital and she thinks she's going to die soon, so I visited her and played guitar and sang for her, a dear friend from overseas just told me that she's pregnant, and a girl that I was interested in just told me things won't work out between us right now.
I'm outside with my skipping rope. Something I've done many many times, it's been so long but it still feels familiar. For the first time in a long time I start to skip, I fatigue quickly so I take a break and start to move, start to shadow box, it's been too long between sessions but my muscles still know what to do.
I finish the session and sit down to take a breather. “Welcome to the Black Parade” starts playing and the lyrics hit me like a truck.
“Defiant to the end, we hear the call, to carry on, we'll carry on”
“Because the world, will never take my heart, you can try, you'll never break me, we want it all, we want to play this part. I won't explain, or say I'm sorry. I'm unashamed, I'm gonna show my scar. Give a cheer, for all the broken, listen here, because it's who we are”
“I'm just a man, I'm not a hero, I'm just a boy who had to sing this song”
Images flood my mind of a time in the past when I was stronger, when I could run, and I know I'm finally on the mend.
I'm overcome with emotion and I can't help but cry. Because though my cancer diagnosis has indefinitely changed my life, after all this time, finally, I know it's coming to an end.
Today my life begins again.