I have always had a love/hate relationship with my body; wanting to be thinner, more toned or hating my spotty skin - but I have rarely thought about the inside of my body. I am relatively healthy; I have my weaknesses (sugar, sweets and chocolate) which I have since found out that cancer loves - great! I haven't always exercised; I was always that lucky/annoying girl who could eat whatever I liked and not exercise and still have a good(ish) body. Although that only lasted until I was 21, now I need to work at it, although I tend to have a cycle of not working at it, hating my body and then working on it for a while before the cycle starts again!
Since my diagnosis I have viewed my body quite differently. To begin with I felt very cross and as though my body had let me down my allowing this lodger into my body, letting it stay comfortably and feeding it enabling it to grow. But since then I have realised that actually my body is amazing. I don't know why I developed cancer or how long it was in there for, but I do believe that the tumour grew slowly over a number of years from a polyp in my colon. Throughout this time my body served me well considering it had something alien begin to attack it; I was a well person who knew they had "bowel issues" but could control them well.
It is now that I look back to when I was pregnant that I realise just how amazing my body is. By this time the tumour would have been quite big and well developed, and yet during my pregnancy I felt better than I had for years. My body protected my beautiful girl, it fed her and allowed her to develop into the perfect baby that I have now. My body even managed to produce the food that she had exclusively until she was 4 months old; this was against all the odds. By the time I had given birth and was breastfeeding I was starting to become quite ill; my food was going straight through me and I was in constant pain, yet my body fed Alexa and she grew perfectly. I even managed to go back to work full time and look after Alexa, and although my body was beginning to fail it still allowed me to do all of this; I even went through an OFSTED inspection during this time and we got outstanding!
So to my body; thank you for being so strong and fighting this cancer, we still have some of this journey to ride out together, but we will get there. Thank you for being stronger than I ever imagined was possible. Thank you for nurturing both me and Alexa against the odds. I promise that I will look after you and give you all the goodness that you need to carry on being so strong and amazing for the rest of our long and healthy life. Oh and I know that you are used to all the sugar but I am going to have to make you go cold turkey a little bit - please forgive me!
Much Love Cx
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