When was your first time?....

Life is full of ‘firsts’. Good and Bad ones! First steps, first teeth, first kiss, first car etc. We remember and mark these ‘firsts’ because they change us and they signify something and because whatever the ‘first’ there will be more to follow and we don’t want to forget. When was your first encounter with Cancer? Nowadays we grow up with the word Cancer being around. I remember family funerals where the word was banned around. One of my best friends mum died when she was 3 years old (RIP Miriam x) so the word has always been known but the meaning of cancer came much later in my life. In November 2008, I met my future husband. I knew more or less straightaway that I’d marry him but he was on a year long sabbatical in Barbados and had 3 months remaining before returning home to the UK. The day he returned, I was invited to his home and met his parents. Pamela Sassoa had a kind and warm face with a spirit of a true warrior queen. She was unwell at the time, having just had a minor procedure on her shoulder. When she deteriorated a week later, there was no grave concerns, a possible infection maybe, nothing antibiotics wouldn’t solve. What followed was an 11 week battle with cancer that ended with Pam’s death (RIP Pam). Watching my, then, new boyfriend and his father deal with the aftermath was what I can only describe as horrific. Taken at 64 years old, Pamela Sassoa left a gap in so many lives that could never be filled. This was the first time I WITNESSED Cancer. Roughly 10 years ago another one of my best friends Aunt was diagnosed with a rare form of breast cancer. She had a short battle of about a year and then was gone. Auntie Doreen (RIP) was young and vibrant and left a tenacious little boy as her legacy. I don’t instantly remember dates and times of the loss but I do instantly remember the feeling of denial! Not denial that she was gone, although I was obviously shocked and sad but what I remember is how I convinced myself that it wouldn’t happen to my family. It was a ‘rare cancer’ and it was ‘unusual for people so young to die’. I reasoned with myself and with the bounce back ability of a vivacious twenty-something-year-old, I buried the horrors and settled on it being highly unlikely that anything like that would happen to my family. This was the first time I DENIED cancer. It was a sunny Thursday in June 2015. My siblings and I were summoned to my Dads house. I was at work in London and would have had to travel back to Reading. So I did what I usually do and called my big sister to form a coalition and rearrange at a time more convenient to me! It was like a film, my phone rings, I answer, my sister says ‘Shez, Dad has cancer’, the room starts spinning, I don’t hear anything else, I say ‘What?’, there’s a ringing in my ears, I can feel my heart beating in my throat, I feel sick, my world changed. This was my first cancer scar. This was the first time I was scared of cancer. But most importantly, this was the first time I said ‘Nah’ to Cancer! (I think I actually said ‘Naaaaaaah Maaaaaaaan!’ to be precise, but anyway, you get my drift!) My first charity run for Cancer Research was in 2017. I run every year as metaphorical ‘Nah’ to cancer. I run to contribute to the collective fight against cancer, the collective ‘Nah’! It’s not much, but it’s all I’ve got to give right now. Please support the fight, Say ‘Nah’ to cancer!