I’m often contacted by people who are dancing with/laughing at/fighting/feeling a bit overwhelmed by cancer. (We all choose our own language. I don’t fight, but if you do, I’m happy to hold your coat.) And one of the most common questions/concerns is: I’ve finished my treatment, but I still feel as though I’m lying on a strip of dual carriageway in the rush hour. How long will I feel like this? When will I be better? Or even normal? Will it ever end?
My answer is a simple one. Yes, you will feel better. You might not feel the same as you did before, but that’s OK, because you won’t be the same as you were before. You will feel better. But it will take a long time. (I wish I had a better answer, or at least, one that was closer to what people want to hear.)
I need to add to this advice, though. I need to add: some changes for the better will be so gradual that you won’t even notice them. Sometimes you will need other people before you even notice them.
I’m adding this because I bought some shoes last week. Following the whole skin-rubbed-off-toe incident, I’ve been on the lookout for a new pair of dressing-up shoes. Because, post-Tamoxifen, my feet went from an 8 to a 9, I tend not to have a lot of success on the hight street, but Next are pretty good at size 9 shoes, so when I was passing a Next last week i went in, found some seriously shiny stilettos, and asked whether there was a size 9.
The assistant came back with a pair. I put them on. I walked around. I admired them. I thought, thank heaven for Next and the increasing social acceptability of having big feet. (When I was a teenager with size 8 feet, the only shoes I could ever get to fit were old-lady Hush Puppies before Hush Puppies got foxy. It was social death at school, on a daily basis.) The assistant said, “I almost didn’t bring them out, because they are only an 8, but they fit you really well.”
Since then I’ve noticed how my feet do swim a little in my size 9 shoes these days.
What small step towards wellness did you barely notice?
Oh, and here they are…
