The past few weeks have been really difficult for me. I hate to admit it because I’m trying to be strong and keep my chin up and all of that other shit. First, after ‘reconciling’ with my ex-boyfriend, I found out that he was still getting lewd pictures from the girl that he had cheated on me with, and he had told her that I had forced him to either come with me to my room on Thanksgiving or said I would be taking him to the hospital. What had had happened was that I had tried to see my friends for the first time in a while, after organising a Thanksgiving dinner and desperately hoping that people would attend. My ex thought that I had ‘exiled’ him when I said that my friends were coming over to study with me beforehand, and then he proceeded to text me throughout dinner whilst getting more and more drunk, until he finally told me that he thought he should just kill himself… and disappeared a few messages later. I was anxious but sad – this wasn’t the first time that he’s voiced the opinion that he should just take his own life, but it was the first time in weeks that I’d properly seen my friends. He kept begging me to come over until I finally said I’d come over after I’d finished with my friends, and I don’t think that he liked that. Part of the decision was selfish on my part; why should I cut things short with my friends just to run over and look after him?
In the end, my guilt won out and I finished up with my friends and trekked across campus to check in on him. I say guilt not because I didn’t care about him; I did… but I also briskly walked across campus because despite everything I went through with my cancer, he stuck with me. Sure, he complained to his ‘piece of ass on the side’ that he hated having to ‘police’ me when it came to drinking and take care of me. He would wait until I fell asleep and then text her all of these awful things about me. And despite that, I couldn’t stop myself from thinking that he spent so many months caring about me and helping my family through the stress of almost losing me. But much like leaving my job after a few months of not being able to do it but continuing because they continue to pay me while I was sick, I realised that I couldn’t stay with someone who wasn’t treating me like a human being solely because they stayed with me when I was ill. He made that choice, just like he made the choice to continue talking to this girl after he wiggled his way back into my life.
Regardless, I walked over on Thursday night, exhausted and stressed, and because he didn’t open his door when I rang the bell, I had to have one of the Porters open it for me. At first, he said that my ex wasn’t there, but after looking further, we found him curled up, drunk, and passed out under his duvet. The Porter left me with him, and I sat down on the desk chair and gently woke my ex up by calling his name. From experience, being woken up with someone’s hand on you after you’ve been deeply out of it is terrifying. Anyway, he finally came to, got angry, punched the wall loads, threatened me because I had talked to the porter (who was ‘his’), and when I offered to leave, he packed up a bag, continued to swear at me, and accompanied me back to my room. BUT FIRST, he ran ahead of me, got money out of the cash point, and ran to the Central shop to buy more wine. Which he proceeded to drink in my room after I fell asleep. I know he liked to do this pretty often because he told Hannah (the texting girl) that I would give him a ‘disapproving look’ whenever he drank in front of me. Sorry for caring, but I didn’t give any such look. If anything, it was sadness in my eyes as I watched him waste away in front of me.
Saturday, my friend and I had booked tickets up to Edinburgh, and I wasn’t going to lose the money I’d spent on the trip, despite my ex still being in my room. I saw his messages to Hannah about how I’d threatened him with the hospital and saw how many times she told him that she loved him. I saw the pictures he’d save of her on his phone, pictures of her naked (or nearly naked) that no one should ever see except her boyfriend (yes, SHE HAS A BOYFRIEND – and SHE KNEW ABOUT ME). I wanted to kick my ex out. But instead, I woke him up, told him I’d be back later and that he could leave whenever he wanted to, and said that if he really wanted to die, I wasn’t going to stop him. He had asked Hannah why people wouldn’t just let him die in peace, and I realised that you can’t make someone’s choices for them. Ultimately, you can’t be the reason why someone is living, because when you’re gone, for whatever reason, what reason will they find to live then?
I went on my trip, receiving just a few texts from my ex while I was gone, most of them indicating that he hadn’t left my room yet, and returned to find him still lounging about. On Sunday, we slept in, my sleep schedule thoroughly fucked, and I had to put off and subsequently cancel plans with my friends because my ex really wasn’t feeling well. On Monday, I decided not to put them off any longer. I made plans to see them around 5pm, because if I didn’t see them, I was going to go absolutely insane. I’d been so drained, I hadn’t even done a clean of my flat or washed up the dishes from Thanksgiving. I was living in filth and self-loathing. I wanted to cry, and I needed to be surrounded by people who properly loved me. The time got changed to 4pm, and I told my ex that he didn’t need to leave right away, but he should probably put some clothes on. He flipped out at me, got incredibly angry, punched MY walls, slammed the door into the shower, swore a lot, threatened me and called me all sorts of absolutely awful things, and told me that I was ‘rushing’ him. But what took the cake was when he started scratching his hands with his fingernails until he started bleeding. He washed his hands and stormed off to go to the GP to bullshit his way into some anti-depressants, leaving me crying in my room, having to put off meeting with my friends for a short while while I re-composed. I got no apology for what had happened, simply an update saying that he was at the GP and they were making him wait to see the doctor. I told him not to text me until he was ready to apologise. I didn’t get an apology that evening, just more texts about how shitty his life was. That was when I mentally reviewed our entire relationship/friendship and realised that everything revolved around him, even when I was sick.
He came to the US while I was dying, but then he wanted me to bring my medical records with me back to the UK in case he needed proof that his year had been too difficult for him emotionally. He was failing his classes, but I was evidence to save him. I’m thoroughly convinced that even now, he wants to stay with me for some other reason, for some purpose he has brewing in his mind. Maybe it’s the plane ticket that my parents once again shelled out money for. He was meant to come home with me for Christmas, and they didn’t cancel his ticket when I broke up with him so that he could come home with me and sober up. That’s how he ended up coming to my house for the two and a half weeks before I was set to come to the uni; my parents saw how much his drinking was impacting me and asked if they should buy him a ticket so he could dry out before term. I desperately said yes because I didn’t know what else to do. He would drink himself into blackouts in the middle of conversations with me and I’d wonder if he was dead. I wasn’t able to sleep, I was getting uncontrollably anxious all the time, and I just couldn’t cope with the stress; I was losing the hair that was already struggling to grow back. So he came to my house and was miserable there, but at least he was sober. He wasn’t interested in me at all, didn’t even want to kiss me. There was nothing there, and I convinced myself that things would get better when we got back to uni. Obviously they didn’t, but I continued to try to convince myself that maybe I wasn’t doing enough or maybe I needed to make myself more interesting to him. I’m just finished with that phase of my life. In the end, the only person I really need to please and be okay with is myself because if I’m not okay with myself, I can’t be okay with other people.
But moving on from that (if you’ve gotten this far, I hope you’ll rejoice in the fact that I’ve blocked him on Facebook and unfollowed him on all social media platforms), on Wednesday, right after everything shitty had happened, I had my next oncologist appointment. In my last appointment, the oncologist had asked if I had been low risk or high risk, with a massive difference in treatment. Low risk in the UK means monthly blood draws after the final bone marrow pull comes back clear. High risk means bone marrow pulls every three months for three years. With all of the complications during my treatment, we assumed I was high risk, and I flat-out refused any bone marrow pulls. I actually said that I’d rather take my chances with dying than getting bone marrow pulls for three months. You may think I’m an idiot for gambling with my life like that… but I honestly would rather die if I had to go through all of that pain again. It’s selfish, I’m sure, but I would never want to condemn anyone to that kind of pain.
This appointment went a lot better. My US oncologist had touched base with my UK oncologist and confirmed that I was both low risk and molecularly clear after my first round of chemo. Because of this, they mutually agreed that if my blood results from Wednesday came back clear, I could discontinue my medication. With clear results, I’m finished with my treatment a year earlier than anticipated! HUZZAH!
I went out for celebratory drinks with my friends on Thursday and have been keeping myself busy since then. But then, in preparing for my mother to arrive on Sunday, the inevitable fall had to come – the Lancaster power station flooded and cut power to campus on Saturday night. I ended up playing Cards Against Humanity with some friends in the Porters Lodge until around 3 in the morning under the dimly-lit emergency lights, but by the time I woke up at half six, all of the lights were off. This made it even more terrifying when someone started banging on my window in the pitch black. I went outside, already knowing who was there – my ex. I won’t go into the details of the experience because it’s hardly worth mentioning, but I echoed that I could never trust him again and that he needed to get right with himself. I barely made it to my taxi at half seven, but I’m glad that I did because with no cell service due to the lack of power, I had no way of contacting him to make sure he could even still get to me with the roads all flooded.
I picked up my mother from the airport and returned to Lancaster campus, desperately hoping that the power was back on, but alas, it was not. By 3:30 in the afternoon, we had arranged to be taken down to Manchester via taxi, as the buses and trains weren’t able to run, and it was good that we did because campus went into emergency mode and people were asked to evacuate their flats.
Which brings me to my current feeling – complete sadness. I know it’s likely an insensitive thing to say, but at the moment, I feel a bit homeless. I can’t change our plane tickets and go Stateside any earlier than the 12th, when my mum heads home, but I can’t really return to campus with no power and no water. Usually, staying in a hotel would be a luxurious vacation, but when I’m anxious about the state of campus and not being able to connect with some of my friends who are there and whether or not graduation will occur and how I’ll be able to pack everything up for Saturday and where in the hell I put my passport, it’s hard to relax and have fun.
Furthermore, this time last year, I was so sick, I was actually dying. I don’t know how to cope well with that. I wanted this to be a relatively easy holiday, where I could graduate and have closure for my MA, wrap up the things I missed when I was sick. Instead, I’m stuck in Manchester with no idea of when I’ll be able to return to campus with working power. Even if I did catch a train from Manchester, there’s no guarantee I could make it up past Preston, the start of the flooding. As nice as this room and bed are, I have no place where I can stay that’s ‘mine’. I am a guest here. My house back in the States, while housing my family, isn’t really ‘home’, but I can’t go to the place I’ve tried to make home. It’s not a great way to feel – lost and confused and anxious… and overwhelmed by memories.
What I can say is that I am thankful to everyone who cared for my family last year, especially groups like the Headstrong Foundation, which offered meals for Thanksgiving and Christmas and brought me a care package when I was very ill. Groups like this remind me that there are people out there who have gone through worse and still somehow manage to be amazing support for others who are still suffering. When I do get back Stateside, I intend to try to connect with people back at the hospital. This time last year, it was the place I called home. I can’t say that I particularly LIKED ‘home’, but that’s what it was. I couldn’t go back to my house and had to make do with what was there. This time last year, one of my dear nurses was trying to find creative ways to get my medications into my system since I couldn’t swallow and they were in capsule form. People were stopping by and talking with my parents to make sure they felt supported. Doctors were consulting outside hospitals to try to determine why I wasn’t responding positively to any treatment. And in the end, I survived. But until January 10th, my mother’s birthday, I will continue to remember that I should have died.
I admit, I have survivor’s guilt. Every once in a while, I am so overwhelmingly struck with the thought that it would have been better if I had died. But then I remember the kindness and the love that I experienced in the hospital, with nurses coming by to talk to me even when I was in my little coma state. And I have to remind myself that maybe if I show that same kindness to others, I will slowly begin to repay the kindnesses shown to me and give others a reason to feel right with themselves, to start to feel whole again. I can only hope. And even that is hard at the moment.
