My Goodbye Cancer Dance and Community Thank You
The Moorland Hall Christmas Tea & Chatter was an eventful occasion. Along with the regular catch-up among friends over morning tea goodies, there was a special Aussie rendition of Jingle Bells from students of Moorland School and my heartfelt lyrical dance performance.
In a bid to thank locals for support, and to say goodbye to my cancer, I performed two improvised dances. If you look closely at the videos (shown down the bottom) you can probably see my “thinking face” while I made up what to do as I went along!
Just one year ago, I was diagnosed with colorectal (bowel) cancer. I
first noticed an issue while teaching side bends in yoga class. After
months of tests through my GP, I took myself to emergency, and was
admitted and had surgery just days later, to remove a cancer tumour
nearly 6cms in diameter.
Although still on a close watch by my
oncologist, I feel it is time to start living again. For a year I felt
like everything was on hold.
Now I am strong enough, both
mentally and physically, to resume a fully active life with my young
boys and I’m thankful to be able to start practicing yoga at an advanced
level once more.
My boys were just 2 and 4 when I was
diagnosed. It was tough on them and my husband, so I thank my lucky
stars every day that my surgeon was on shift that weekend.
With
my family living in England, I am forever grateful that my local
community rallied around when I was sick, so performing to locals at the
Christmas Tea & Chatter was one way to give back to the community.
A playgroup held at Moorland Hall is where I met some of the friends
that helped me through the dark times. Along with neighbours from
Stewarts River, Hannam Vale, Coopernook and the Hastings River area.
The
amount of support was sometimes overwhelming. Once visitors were
stopped, I drew out a bubble diagram of supporters while I was in
hospital, to remind me that I was not alone. It spanned two A4 pages
(and my writing is tiny). There was always someone to message and I
even had a care package posted to me at the hospital! The nurses were
most surprised.
It was the seemingly small acts of kindness that
made such a difference; having lawns mowed, the bath cleaned, meals
brought over, play dates for the boys and being given a mountain of
herbal teas, natural therapy goodies, a book and clothes while in
hospital. That book (Where the Crawdads Sing) got me through the wait on
the day of surgery.
Unquantifiable amounts of thanks to all my family back in England and my
husbands side of the family in Melbourne. Although they could not
physically be there (because of COVID travel restrictions), they were at
the end of my phone. My Mum told me she felt so bad because she
thought she couldn’t help. But she was there when I needed someone
most…. In the middle of the night. My sister was an invaluable support.
She knew the drills, after having breast cancer. I am just sorry my
Step-mum had to go through it twice.
A lot more of my friends
will now know I had cancer. I didn’t want to be the “cancer victim” of
the group. I just wanted to try and be me. So although I was tired and
found meeting new people challenging, I am so grateful to my close
friends that I met in Coopernook the first time I ventured out with my
boys after hospital and my friends at the Hastings parents group, who
didn’t even know I’d had major surgery a few weeks before joined them.
I
chose to tell my story now not only as a thank you, but hopefully to
inspire and help others who have been diagnosed with cancer.
Aside from needing to be a functioning mum and wife, being asked to
teach yoga again gave me the added focus to get myself back together;
for the whole community.
I dedicated my performance to my
husband and young boys, all those who have been touched by cancer, and
my surgeon, Dr. Allan Kwok, whose skillful hands saved me from having a
colostomy bag. If I had a colostomy bag my dance, and outfits would
have been vastly different.
On that note, thanks go to Naomi, a
good friend, and neighbour of mine who found my performance outfits
waiting in the wings at the Kendall Op Shop, where she volunteers. She
got her reward in the form of a lucky door prize and one of the big
raffle prizes!
During the dance introduction, emotions were
running high, from me and the audience. At least three of my friends
told me afterwards they had tears while I explained how my life had been
on hold for the past year, but that I was ready to live again; for
myself, my young boys, my husband and my community.
With Cancer
touching the lives of so many of my local friends and yoga students, I
felt that it was important to show a good example of how you can pull
through and live a happy life post-cancer.
Being a bit rusty,
after not having danced properly for a number of years, I was lucky to
get a breather between dances with an interlude of jokes expertly
delivered by one of Tea & Chatter regulars.
Although more
comfortable dancing at home with my boys, I came out of dance retirement
for what could be the first of more community dancing fun!
If
you, or a loved one, has been touched by cancer, you may find solace
among the locals at Moorland Hall during a Tea & Chatter or at one
of my yoga classes. I was trained in teaching Yoga for Cancer about 10
years ago. Which gave me some simple skills to handle my diagnosis and
treatment. Sometimes I think I was given cancer to better help cancer
battlers, carers and survivors on their journey.
My Heartfelt Introduction to my Dance Performance Video
My Goodby Cancer Dance Video
My Feeling Good After Cancer Dance
Comments
Post a Comment