I WANT TO BELIEVE

I read “Fitzherbert Frog loses his voice” so many times to my children. I had just about memorised the story and it’s likely that I enjoyed telling the story more than they enjoyed hearing it. All those years ago, reading that story, I never imagined that one day I would have something in common with the fluoro green frog. Just like him though, I eventually found my voice. 

I took a quick, deep breath and yelled, “Scully!” from an upper level of Indooroopilly Shopping Centre. It was 1995 (I think) and I stood alongside hundreds of X-Files fans wanting a glimpse of Scu…I mean…Gillian Anderson. The blurry photo of a tiny Anderson stood as my evidence for the encounter. Please, I want to emphasise, I’m not the person who lauds movie stars but, this show, X-Files is the exception.

X-Files has, and this is why we should be careful what our kids watch, made a significant impact on my thinking. Thinking that has carried into adulthood.  As a teen viewer, I very quickly decided that I could relate to the “Trust No One”, “I want to Believe” phrases and yeah, for sure, the government was an establishment to be questioned. Side note - I had a great childhood and I wasn’t bullied at school. It was just that the storylines in this cult show really exposed some truths. Well, I believed them to be truths. The result? I learned to love a good conspiracy. 

I found particular episodes so intriguing that I would spend time at the local library (no internet back then) looking for further information. So much so, that in my Computer Studies class, I demonstrated my skill at excel spreadsheets (an assignment task) to lay out UFO sightings and related info. I just gobbled this stuff up, I loved it. What if there were monsters in the sewers of New York, crop circles in the countryside of England, government departments deploying men wearing all black, erasing memories and alien abductions were for real? 

I didn’t have anyone to share this information with who didn’t think I was a little weird. But, so many times, I was conflicted. How could one even contemplate such things having been brought up in a home with the sacred Christian text at the centre? I believe that Jesus died on the cross and rose again so that I may have eternal life, and still do, but how would I reconcile this? Perhaps only one truth could exist? Yes, seriously, I did believe that there were truths to the sci-fi classic. Again, this was something that I was interested in exploring but it was a weird topic that others weren’t interested in. So, I kept these thoughts to myself. 

In 2011, when I was diagnosed with breast cancer I had already formed strong opinions on big Pharma, thanks to the influence of my fav TV show. Chemo was one “hellova drug”. It was founded upon chemicals used against enemies in war. Why on earth would I have this injected into my blood stream, willingly? I was so conflicted. My conspiracy theories rose to the surface influencing, heavily, my decision on treatment for the disease. Do I take the poison? There was something else to consider… Couldn’t the God who created the universe just heal me miraculously? 

Well, truth is, I didn’t get a miracle. And, after investigating alternatives, I went with the mainstream recommendation - cut, poison and burn i.e. surgery, chemo and radiation. Having discarded the food pyramid and choosing to eat whole foods I found that to be a way to have some control in this seemingly out-of-my-control situation. The poison, which I so reluctantly took, did its job. I was cancer free or some might say, in remission. I had to admit that big Pharma did as it had promised. So was I wrong to have questioned them and have bought into the conspiracies? I can say that I did confirm, for myself, my theory that eating a whole food diet was the best way to heal. Before, during and after I found that my faith had indeed helped me to get though. I thanked God for strength and for giving me so many blessings along the way. I yelled these truths to whoever would listen, in the form of a blog, “Out Came the Sunshine”.  Chemo could be done, healthy eating is the way to go and believing the former two doesn’t mean that you don’t believe in God. 

Nine years later however, August 2019, I lost my voice. I was diagnosed with breast cancer again. 

So, big phama didn’t do it’s job after all. Eating healthy also seemed to have failed me. I still had my faith. Some might call me crazy but I wasn’t about to start blaming God or anything. 

This time it was not in my breast. It was in my bones, too many to require itemisation. It was in my liver. It was in my lung. I stopped working a job that I gained so much joy in. The house renovations were cancelled. I was unable to run my house. Being a wife and mother came in equal second place to the disease. I sat at home. I tried really hard to make sense of the cancer coming back. I had so many questions. Why was this happening? What am I supposed to learn? How can I be a productive citizen at this time? What’s my purpose? What had I done to bring this upon myself? Honestly though, I just wanted it to be over - I didn’t care how. 

I tried to access my old blog, thinking that I’d blog my experiences again, like I had all those years ago. I found it so helpful and I remember my readers did too. But, I couldn’t work out how to access the site. I created a new one, using a different platform and titled it, “I Choose Yellow”. I took my oldest daughter on a walk, camera in hand, to capture something yellow. This blog was going to document how positive I was despite the circumstance. It was like I had found purpose - my voice was under a rock and I was about to get it back. But my voice wasn’t there. I couldn’t lie. I wasn’t feeling positive. I was bending and bowing with the wind as it tossed me from thoughts of death to life, back and forth. I socialised when I felt reasonable and those around me commented on how positive I was. Truth is, it’s not how I felt on the inside. It’s easy to be positive when you’re feeling ok; quite a different thing when you're in pain or feeling yuck. I just couldn’t think of anything to write. Nothing. What’s more, there were things about this recent diagnosis and treatment that I didn’t want anyone to know. And, my rule of writing a blog is that I would be honest. This time I couldn’t be honest. I didn’t want to share it all. My voice was no where to be found. 

Last time, cancer was a physical battle. This time, it’s a mental one. How do you explain that?

Well, on Aprll 9, 2021, just days away from starting IV chemo, I found my voice. So, here I am. It’s day 1 of IV chemo. I’m ready to talk. (And, somehow, I managed to get my old blog alive again.)