Thread by @MlleSophiePofie

#breastCancerAwarenessMonth ramblings: I've been thinking about the words #fighter/#warrior/etc for #cancer patients recently. These thoughts have to go somewhere so here they are.
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I'm one of the people these words apply to. Or they don't, idk.
If you don't know, I was diagnosed with #breastCancer in the spring of 2020, right on time for the first wave of the corona virus hitting my home.
It was a horrible time and it still often enough is.
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I've used the fighter imagery, the hashtags #fightLikeAGirl and #strongAF and I have a bracelet that says "warrior" gifted to me by my sis for the first post-C Christmas that makes me ridiculously proud. Yet I know the flaws in that metaphor.
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After all, I didn't fight against the cancer. That fight was fought for me by doctors and medicine, by warriors who wield much sharper weapons than hope and positive thinking alone. I'm the princess to be saved from the dragon, not the knight. But I have been fighting.
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And I really really don't want to say that those who were not as lucky as I were weak, didn't fight enough, were lacking in any way. I wasn't stronger. I was just luckier.
But still I've fought.
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I've fought the urge to close my eyes at the danger and pretend it wasn't there. To get up and run when I was wheeled into the OR for the surgery that was going to change my body forever. Fought to get up in the morning for radiation even though all I wanted was to sleep. 6/

I've kicked in stupid bureaucratic barriers that people going through cancer treatment really should not encounter. Written letters, filled in forms, spent hours on the phone with hotline people who knew nothing about anything.
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I've fought to stay calm with people who want to diminish what I've been through. Because breast cancer is an "easy" cancer. Because I got a good reconstruction. Because I got to keep my hair.
It's still pain. Worse than most can imagine.
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I've battled the urge to kick people in the teeth when they asked what it looks like now before they remembered to ask what I feel like. Although maybe that I really shouldn't fight.
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I've soldiered through pain and fear and loneliness and grief. Fought against the hopelessness, the despair creeping in, the fraying at the edges, the losing myself in the process.
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I'm dealing with the pain of the one side effect of the treatment that I'm not ready to easily tweet about. Every single day.
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And when it comes to those battles, I AM strong. Does that mean I think I'm stronger than anyone? No. I'm only stronger than the person I could have been. And of that I am proud (although I do understand her). I'm a fucking warrior queen.
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