When people ask 'what was it like to discover you had cancer when you were pregnant?', the word I usually use is, 'devastating'. I can hear my voice saying it in lots of different ways: emphatic, understated, withering, cheerful. I find that it's easier to describe what we did, where we went or what we said to each other, rather than how we felt.
There's a scene in Probably Nothing - the comic I wrote during my treatment - where I describe it to a counsellor: 'I can't believe I'm having to deal with all this shit when I ought to be sitting on a lotus leaf relaxing before I have a baby.' I only went to see her once - I was put off by the huge box of tissues on the table and couldn't cry.
We didn't go to any antenatal classes either, and I stayed away from other pregnant women, mostly. I hated it when I did have to go to the clinic and be around healthy expectant mothers. The chemotherapy I was having, to make it less likely that I'd die in a few years, could have been harming my baby. I felt jealous of the problems the other women described; one talked about eating potatoes and how it affected her blood sugar levels, then about how she ought to have had her cervix stitched shut. I drew a picture of me saying to my partner, Tom, 'ought to have had your mouth stitched shut, more like.'
Writing down the jokes that Tom and I made with each other helped me to feel better, even though they were often jokes about appalling things. When I first started chemo it made my shit look like cappuccino - 'the froth and the coffee'. I told Tom about it and he said 'what about the chocolate powder heart?' It seems amazing now that we could make jokes at all, but we could.
And jokes were certainly preferable to the language that surrounds cancer. It's so euphemistic and dishonest. People want to hear that you're 'thinking positive' when really you're furious and terrified. In get-well cards, people are sorry to hear 'your news', and no one can bring themselves to say 'cancer'. Cancer metaphors are unhelpful, too, words like 'battling' imply that it's your own fault if you die, that you didn't 'fight' the disease hard enough.
Alongside all this, I found words used to describe pregnancy and pregnant mothers infantile, and just as problematic. Growing foetuses are known as 'bump', 'bean', 'raisin', even. As soon as I got pregnant, my stomach became my 'belly' and my pregnancy app encouraged me to take and share 'proud belly pics'. I didn't, because mine was covered in scars and had a colostomy bag stuck to it. Suddenly it's normal to talk about yourself in the third person; 'How's Mummy today?' ('Oh, she’s OK, just thinking about her own funeral again'.)
Before I was diagnosed, during my first trimester, it took several GP appointments and two visits to A&E before my symptoms were taken seriously. Perhaps if pregnant women weren't assumed to be as ditzy as the language surrounding pregnancy implies, doctors would have taken action sooner, and the operation I had - to remove a tumour that had grown large enough to completely block my bowel - wouldn't have been so dangerous for my baby and me.
James was born halfway through my chemo treatment. He's just had his first birthday and is completely wonderful. Fortunately, he wasn't harmed by the chemo at all. My scans are currently clear and I'm in what they call 'remission'. There's a good chance my cancer will never come back, but also a chance that it will. Fear often catches me out, though. It's times when I'm happiest, watching James squeaking at his stacking cups or taking him for walks in the countryside with Tom, that I'm reminded of what I might lose.
I prefer not to be called a 'survivor' – that pesky cancer-speak again. To me, 'surviving' connects me to cancer and death. I'm not merely surviving now that my scans are clear. I'm living, and that feels different and better.
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Guest post: What is it like to be diagnosed with cancer when you're pregnant?
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MumsnetGuestPosts · 08/08/2014 10:52
OP posts:
WaxyDaisy ·
08/08/2014 19:06
I'm not entirely sure what is an appropriate response to your post, but it is powerful, witty and enlightening. Thank you.
Also I LOVE Dipdap. It makes me roar 
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