I realised and accepted quite early on in my diagnosis that going through this experience (and if I managed to make it out the other side), I most definitely wouldn’t be the same person coming out that I was going in.

I was never going to “get back to the old me”.

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It’s a phrase I’ve noticed more and more since reflecting on it. People wanting to get back to their old selves. It may just be me, but I feel that there’s a large element of looking backwith rose-tinted glasses. Sure, looking back on old photos of myself as younger, a different weight or better fitness may make me envious of what I had at that point in my life, but I don’t want to go back to that person. I’ve learnt, I’ve grown and I’ve had so many experiences since being that person and I am continuing to grow now.

I find it hard to relate to people who say after treatment that “they don’t feel like the old me”, because I don’t really understand how people can expect to go through a potentially traumatic experience and expect to be exactly the same afterwards. I don’t know whether it’s a naivete in some people’s experiences of trauma, perhaps so, that they hope that this will just be a blip and things will just resume. Maybe for some people, it does. Just not in my experience.

I for one, think it ought to be celebrated a bit. I mean, not to the point of parades or where some days you just want to forget about it, but if you’re still reminiscing about “the old you” that means there’s “still a you”. What’s more, that you has coped with some pretty tough things.

I went through months of treatment, slicing parts of my body off, poisoning it and irradiating it, leaving lasting damage to get to the point where I am now.

I want to just say that there were absolutely times where I wanted to jack it all in. Times were my bones ached, my muscles were in agonising spasms, times where I was crying in pain on the toilet from constipation, times where I was at the lowest I thought I could possibly be and debated if it was worth all the pain. I’m left changed by last year and that’s ok. Physically there are scars, there’s menopause, there’s radiotherapy tattoos and hormonal changes. Mentally I get anxiety at times, odd moments of feeling loss and I live with a background noise of the fear of recurrance.

Do I wish that I could go back to “the old me” and not have experienced any of it? Well, yes and no. I’d rather not have had cancer, but I’m also glad of the perspective I’ve gained through experiencing it.

I don’t want to go back to “the old me”, she didn’t know just quite how resilient I am.