Colouring in Helped Get Me Through Cancer.

This is one of those articles where, as a reader, if you know... you know.

You are going to be nodding along thinking "Yeah... I hear you" (or some such similar phrase of your own making).

And... if you don't know... you are going to think that I may be a bit nuts... especially, when I make the following statement as a starter for ten:

"Colouring in can help get you through cancer."

I know. I didn't get it either... for a long, long time.

In fact, I had to get cancer before I got it and I definitely don't recommend that schooling.

Here is what happened...

It was 2015 and I had just had a baby after ten years of trying.

Yay! Beautiful isn't he?

❤❤❤❤❤

I was also diagnosed with cancer.

My emotions were all over the show.

One moment I was on cloud nine with my little bundle of joy in my arms; the next I was in hospital with sepsis because my immunity was non-existent due to chemo.

It was a wild ride.

To be fair, I coped ok with the hair loss, the bloating from steroids, the mouth ulcers, the loss of fingernails and the surgery. I mean, they were slices of life that I would have happily skipped past if offered, but they were a means to an end. Part of the physical battle of cancer. Work-through-able. Expected. I had seen children get through this stuff. If they could then I would. Done.

That is how I approach everything in life. Rationally, clinically, pragmatically, systematically and whole heartedly. I am a career woman with bundles of optimism and crate loads of "let's get this done." Cancer was not going to win. I was fighting with everything I had.

Dear God, it was tiring.

The tiredness from chemotherapy is extraordinary. It is a sideswiping, coma-bringing, chronic and insidious fatigue that can blindside the hardiest soul, at any time, and with unrelenting frequency.

Trying to look after a new-born baby whilst waves of tiredness crashed over me took me to the boundary of my resilience.

My husband, my family and my friends were amazing. They looked out for me every day, pitching in where they could. Supporting and caring. Exceptional people who really helped me navigate the tiredness.

However, they could not help me navigate tiredness's nasty side kick:

"The Brain Fog"

A determined and noxious symptom that crept into my mind and fuzzed it right up.

When your clarity of thought goes, oh boy... that is a whole other evil.

Nobody had told me that as I fought for my physical health, I risked losing myself.

Yet, that is exactly as it was.

I couldn't just work harder and faster and smarter to solve this problem. I could barely stay awake long enough to think about it and when I tried to think about it my thoughts were cluttered, incoherent and claggy.

My world was inside out and upside down.

Yes, I was in a battle for survival. I was beating cancer. I took the drugs and had the surgeries. My body was getting better but my soul was crying.

No. I am not being dramatic here. This is the truth.

I was used to achievements. In my job I would sometimes make hundreds of fast decisions every day. I was a person used to being on their feet, reacting, planning, driving things forward. I had purpose in life. Aims. Then I stopped being able to think clearly and had a chronic need to sit down all the time.

As I won the battle of my life, I often felt like I was dying.

It panicked me to be honest. Anxiety built. I had this awful feeling that in my incapacity, through my clouded judgement, I was letting everyone down. None more so than my beautiful baby.

I went from being a giver in life to a taker.

This hurt more than the operation to remove all my lymph nodes from under my arm. It drained me more than the tap fitted to my chest to run off excess fluids and it choked me more than the incision in my throat to remove my thyroid.

One day, as I lay in hospital following a rather serious infection, my mum came to visit. She brought me a colouring book with a pack of sharpie pens.

I remember looking at it and thinking - really, this is what my life is now?

Colouring in.

Then, during one exceptionally dull afternoon when all I had for company was a a machine that went beep, I looked at the book and thought... well why not? What else have I to do?

I selected the colour palette carefully and coloured the picture in.

It was in no way challenging but it focused my mind on something positive and outward.

There was a calmness in the process.

A sense of completion once done.

All my anxieties, frustrations and concerns were lost in choosing the pink of a petal or the orange for a leaf.

For a good few hours, I felt free from all the stress and enormity of what was happening.

It was wonderful... I went on to colour in the whole flipping book.

It was the oddest thing.

I had cancer.

I was in hospital, seriously ill.

I coloured in a picture of some flowers and then felt better.

Madness.

Have I lost you? Perhaps I have. This is like trying to describe a magic eye picture to somebody who has never seen the pixilated image morph into a scene.

Maybe some science and research will help galvanise you to the cause?

Yep - I am going there.

Colouring in to statistics... the wild ride never ends!

Please click here if you would like some data.

(Let's pretend you did and carry on...)

Look at that... My felt tip pens and I at the scientific frontier!!

And back to the colouring in...

But it didn't stop with colouring in.

Oh no.

I am not a dabbler in life.

I am a belt and braces, roll your sleeves up, let's get into this rabbit hole and discover the whole darned warren, type of person.

So, tiredness allowing, I staggered through my brain fog and tried all sorts of crafts and arts and making of things.

It was joyous.

One of the highlights being when I realised my efforts were actually contributing again to the lives of my nearest and dearest.

I had started making all sorts of things and much of what I made, I gifted.

My making particularly came into its own at Christmas when I made everyone's presents. I am typically time poor so usually I simply buy stuff. But that year, in amongst all the looming gloom of cancer and sleepless nights of new motherhood I actually found myself with some time and I made use of it... like an elf.

I drew.

I painted.

I made various things like cards and gift tags.

I wrote - a lot.

And I baked... prolifically.

(I also coloured in a whole load of books).

Mindful making helped me fight cancer.

The chemo and surgery sorted out the physical stuff but the emotional stuff - the anxiety, the loss of self, the frustration - that pain - was eased by gaining a purpose, building interest in life, experimenting, achieving small wins, being able to show others you care in a meaningful way, sharing what made me happy with others and making them smile.

I could work in bursts of energy rather than having to bust out a slog. There was a timeliness, a rhythm. I could pick things up and put them down as and when my capacity and capability allowed.

I found so much contentment through making and creating.

To this day, nearly 6 years on, I am still carving out time to do all the skills I learned in 2015.

I am happier today because of what I went through then.

Lessons learned.

Thanks mum for buying me that colouring in book.

Peace and love. ✌❤