DECISION of NO MORE TREATMENT

Hello metastatic cancer friends,

No matter what your faith, I think we all hope and believe there is something out there.

As stated in my last blog, over the last week I've had to think about the biggest decision in my life, something none of us should everhave to do.

On Friday I attended what has become my second home, Prince of Wales Hospital.

Firstly I met with my beautiful metastatic breast cancer Counsellor, where, for over an hour I spoke about this insidious disease and the crossroad I now find myself at. AS I'm sure you can imagine, this session was extremely emotional and confronting. I won't go into the finer details but we all know what I was discussing.

At the end of this session I was making my way to another part of the hospital for my blood tests that measure my cancer markers. Standing in a packed lift waiting for it to reach level 7, I looked to my left and (for the first time ever) I noticed a fellow cancer patient, around my age, standing next to her mum, with no hair, a port in her inflamed red chest, looking extremely unwell.

As the stars would have it, they exited the lift on the same floor as me, I touched her arm softly and asked if I could ask her something.

Her name was Anne, as it turned out, she too was a metastatic cancer patient. I tried SO HARD to not cry (without success) when I told her that I had been offered a chemo port but with absolutely no guarantee that it would even give me one more precious day on this earth. Anne too, had been told the same thing, however said she had two young children and was set to be married on April 1st.

Anne told me that the port had only been in her chest for 3 weeks, but already due to the chemo and infections she had already spent 1 week out of the 3 in the cancer ward. Anne also said that if she didn't have young babes she wouldn't be going through with the treatment that makes you so ill and doesn't even guarantee an extra day of life.

Anne, her mum and I were openly sobbing outside the lifts, sobbing at the cruelty, mental anguish and sickness this disease creates.

After hugging each other, with tears running down our cheeks Anne whispered "I understand and you are very brave".

I walked away and the decision has been made……I will live my life with every ounce of strength and beat of my heart, but I will live it as Odette, Odette that loves life and wants to shine bright until the end, not Odette that is riddled with poison that makes you so ill you just want the pain to end.

xxx