1. Please allow me to introduce myself!
Hi, I’m Orla. I’m 51 years old and from Co. Fermanagh. I’m in a relationship with Paschal and we have the most beautiful dog, Bella. This is my story of a period in time. My story is not unusual, unfortunately it is something being experienced by a great number of people, either directly or indirectly, so this might resonate. For those who have not had this experience hopefully it will start a conversation for you.
I have many reasons for deciding to do this blog, the main one being in June 2023 I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I was 49 years old, on one hand I was shocked, on the other I was ok about it. I wasn’t someone who checked my breasts for lumps, it all happened by sheer lucky chance, if you want to call it luck! I struggled with that term, luck, on and off, whatever it was that meant I found this lump, while not checking my boobs for lumps, I’m grateful!
I think it was the shock of the diagnosis for me that urged me to want to talk about it openly. Why was it a shock? At that time it was because of my age, because I was relatively fit, because I didn’t feel sick, because I hadn’t yet had my first mammogram, because I didn’t check my boobs, because it never occurred to me that this would happen at this age; for all these reasons one of my first responses was that I wanted to tell people, women and men, to check their boobs and their moobs! I didn’t just want to tell them, I wanted to shout very loudly at everyone to check and get themselves checked! This was a constant thought for me throughout my treatment and beyond, and if you haven’t gathered, I want people to flipping check and then to go and get checked!
The second thing for me was information. Throughout my treatment one of the things I did, almost daily, was scour the internet for information about the type of cancer I had, what it meant, what was the success rate of treatment, what celebrities had experienced the same type of cancer and the outcome (meaning lifespan). There was quite a bit of more formal information about my breast cancer type, but when talking about actual people who had breast cancer, the information doesn’t really talk about type, stage, grade, the things I wanted to know. Therefore, I decided I wanted people to know there are different types of breast cancer, and for me I can at least share my type and maybe open up discussion about breast cancer types, treatment and help create a bit of a better understanding.
The third thing was having a local voice for cancer. A lot of what I read and saw on the internet was about people from elsewhere, outside of my county of Fermanagh. Beautiful as it is, there are a lot of people from here experiencing cancer, not only breast cancer, but breast cancer is all I can talk about, as that’s my experience.
The fourth thing was what the actual hell is cancer! When I look at it now I knew absolutely nothing; nothing! I only know a smaller bit now, but I do have a better insight to it. One thing I learned was there is only one way to do cancer and that’s your way. There’s no right way, there’s no wrong way, there’s only your way!
When I was diagnosed, I was very clear and definite about how I wanted to do cancer, for me! I was going to talk about it, anything and everything that people wanted to know I’d tell them. I was going to go bald, no wig! I was going to be positive, this was not going to beat me! There was to be no mystery about it, I would be out as much as I could, when I could, because I wasn’t going to hide with it. Cancer when I was growing up was always taboo, not something that was spoken about, I suppose because people feared it and it caused them to face their own mortality. Yes, cancer is shit, and stage and grade, can determine the outcome but fortunately for me I found the lump early on and therefore could be treated, hence the reason for writing this, is to encourage and tell everyone, of all ages, no matter what, if there is anything they’re concerned about then to go and get it checked, don’t sit and wait and hope that it’s not something because if you do then it could be too late! So how I decided to do cancer was how I wanted to do it.
It's not usual for me to speak openly about myself, I find social media very hard, that whole ‘share all’ culture. Paschal describes me as reserved and he’s not the first person to say so. While being communicative, I could sit and have a conversation with someone for 3 hours, but I wouldn’t necessarily share very much about myself. It’s not that I’m secretive, it’s just that I don’t think what I have to say is very interesting, I prefer to listen to others. However, when I know a person and trust them, that’s quite a different thing. That said I find the topic of cancer important and I had such an urge and a determination to talk about it, and still do, for no reason other than to make cancer a conversation piece and not something we should make taboo.
It’s now two years on since I was diagnosed and during this time I’ve thought about whether or not to do a blog. It keeps coming back to a burning pit in the bottom of my stomach to do it. Now feels like a better time to share it, as I’m through my treatment, I’ve done a lot of work on myself and I’m clear, for me, about the reasons I’m doing this. At this stage, if there are to be regrets, I’d rather regret having done it, than have regrets for not doing it.
So where does Bella come into all of this? Let’s just rewind a bit here to introduce you to her and when she became part of our lives and her role in all this cancer business!
Disclaimer: I want it to be very clear I’m not a medic, I’m not medically trained, my knowledge of cancer is extremely limited. This is a personal account, my experience, and not based in any medical knowledge whatsoever. If someone is going through treatment, or has found a lump they are concerned about, get medical advice, don’t sit wondering, I nearly did but I’m so very glad I didn’t.
Warning: This is not a literary piece, it’s an account of my cancer experience!