My 5-Year Cancerversary: the shit and the shine

On 13th October 2014, I heard the words, “Your cancer is incurable, Mrs Sabbage. We will treat you as best we can, but I suggest you get your affairs in order.” At that point, I was riddled with tumours. Left lung. Spine. Lymph nodes. Shoulders. Ribs. Brain. Within two weeks I was coughing blood, became breathless walking upstairs, was losing my sight in one eye and pain was shooting down my spinal column from the tumour on my C3 vertebra, which threatened to paralyse me from the neck down. I got my affairs in order. Gabriella was four years old. My grief was bottomless.

Five years on, I am alive. I am walking upright. I am seeing clearly. I can breathe effortlessly. Gabriella is now nine and a half. My grief has settled somewhere on a solid shelf in a deep well, but seeps over the edge whenever more brain tumours appear. This has happened three times since that first bout, most recently in May this year, which I feared would become my final furlong and which catapulted me into another summer of toxic treatments. 

Turns out, I have more furlongs to go. My latest scans show no new tumours and the ones that have been treated are shrinking. Interestingly, the main (much-reduced) critter is on my third eye at the front of my skull, which might explain why my intuition has been firing on fewer cylinders of late and which also begs the question, “What do I need to see that I cannot see?”

I am very relieved, of course. And grateful. But I’m not dancing for joy. Despite knowing this news for a couple of weeks, I haven’t wanted to go public. Instead, I’ve tucked it away in a protective pocket lest people think I’m okay now and turn away in the belief that “Sophie’s got this. She’s done it again. She’s such a wonder.” Because I’m not a wonder. I’m a human. As I write, I’m as exhausted as I’ve ever been. My body is sluggish, toxic, overweight (a-bloody-gain), burnt out, housing ulcers and rashes and infections. My thumbnails have fallen off. My energetic fuses have blown. I keep bursting into tears with sheer tiredness and I’ve-had-enough-of-fucking-cancer-ness. There is little respite. 

Which brings me to what I haven’t been seeing: blind spots I’ve become more aware of this summer. Self-care. Obvs. An old chestnut actually, but it continues to be my personal Everest after decades of scaling numerous developmental heights far more successfully. But I’m onto something else of late, an inaccurate impression I give quite unconsciously: that I’m surrounded by hands-on support, that I’m thriving in every way (physically, spiritually, financially), that I really am a frickin wonder who really has got this and really will keep doing it again. 

I know I rock this thriving-in-adversity gig a lot of the time. My spirit is fierce and resilient and has marched me into wonder a thousand times, often at the rockiest terrain on this road. I serve. I create. I write books and articles. I give talks. I make media appearances. I’m told I make a difference to many people. I recognise all this and share what I’m up to in various ways because I want to hold a candle in the darkness. I want to banish false hope and false hopelessness in equal measure, not just in the cancer community but in a society that lurches from puffed-up positivity to saturnine negativity (and back again) when it is authenticity that sets us free. 

I hadn’t noticed the false impression these accomplishments can give sometimes. The omissions. The shadows. The dark nights of the soul. Like how very tired I get; how much of my work is unpaid or expenses only; what a terrible cook I am; how I sometimes lie awake fretting about my income more than my brain tumours; how much I miss working with a team as I did B.C. (Before Cancer) when I ran a successful business; the days I am surviving rather than thriving. 

Please don’t get me wrong. This is not a pity party. I don’t wallow in these places. I do what I teach to pass through them. I call on the love of my husband and a few close friends who see me when I can’t see myself and have my back when I don’t. In my books, talks and courses, I wear my heart on one sleeve and my shadow on the other. Vulnerability is one of my superpowers. Along with lie-seeking and truth-telling and bullshit radar. But in other aspects of my daily life, like social media posts perhaps, I seem to unintentionally project some kind of wonder-woman (or generosity-fountain or serious-sucker) illusion that attracts numerous requests for my time and energy along with genuine surprise when I ask, “Do you have a budget for that?” or “What can you give me in return?” 

The upside is that I am getting much better at this. I am saying no much more often. When I say yes to an unpaid gig, I ensure there are other benefits – like potential clients in the particular audience, promotion of my books or building my profile as a professional speaker. I am well aware that a new business involves a dedicated period of rowing the boat until you can hoist its sails. I truly value my time and talent where I have previously pissed them away. This is a transitional period in which I am daring to set up a new business, despite my ‘terminal’ condition and heartbreak at the death of the business I built before. 

The lifeshock that shone a bright light on this false impression (or is it projection onto rather than from me?) came during a phone call with a friend, approximately two weeks after I went public about the latest brain tumours: “I’ve been meaning to call John, but imagine you are both inundated with people offering you support.” I burst into tears and replied, “If you call John, you will be the first to do so.” I could count on one hand the people who had reached out to me directly, but it was the absence of support for John that woke me up. He gives of himself so consistently and generously. But he is 67 years old. His daughter is nine and his wife has stage four cancer. He gets scared and stressed and exhausted too. He also plays his part by not reaching out or really letting people uphold him when they do offer support. We are a right pair of proud, independent, don’t-ever-be-needy-because-it’s-totally-blech personalities. Which is why we’re not angry or hurt. We get it. We set ourselves up for more exhaustion than is really necessary. And it is we who need to change.

So here is the untidy truth of my life on this remarkable day. I’m over the moon and under the weather. I’m alive and knackered. I’m open for business and closed for freebies. I’m up for the ride and down for any assistance on offer. I’m grateful to my clobbered body and clobber it myself some days (I would like a new one please). I am yes and then no and then if I must and I want to scream and bollocks to cancer and then I am yes again, okay, I can do this and I will do it badass. I want my star to rise higher in the sky and I want to hide under a duvet with red wine, cashmere socks and Australian soap operas. I want to bring my best to what’s been given and I want to return cancer to sender. Oh how very badly I want to return it to sender. More than I have words to say.

I keep hitting walls folks, but I keep on keeping on with what I have.

I am particularly grateful to those who have deeply touched my heart and helped me retain my sense of tumour this summer: Catherine Rolt, Maggi Gilson, Peggy Jarrett and Darren Hazael. John and Gabriella Sabbage above all. And everyone who has sent loving vibes and uplifting messages. They all go in.

Inwards and onwards to the next furlongs. May there be many.