The "Big C" Challenge by Kati Markgraf

09/01/2017

Today I'm grateful to be at Pohara, this tiny corner of the world i love above all else, the place the man I love asked me if I'd spend the rest of my life with him and where we married a few months later. After so many happy times we're here again, for the last time for a long time, and I'm sitting on the beach on my own saying goodbye to this place, when I right next to me I notice something that looks like once it might have been alive but is now dead and it reminds me of the massive tumor
that once was alive in my body so much, it's spooky. And it makes me think what a privileged situation it is to be sitting next to this cancerous tumours lookalike thing on the most beautiful beach, listening to the waves while waiting for breakfast at my most favourite cafe with the man I so dearly love. I'm alive. It's a gift that no one thought I'd have , this far after diagnosis, yet it is happening, I am alive. I am immensely grateful for this moment and eventhough I know we won't be coming back here for a long time, I also hope this is not the last time.

05/12/2016

Looks like an innocent enough, end-of-year retail scene: the new year is coming, let's go and buy a new calendar. A yearly ritual most people take for granted, but for me it was the cause of a total public melt down same time last year. After the embarrassing incident it took me another couple of weeks to go back to the shop (in my sunglasses and a hat) and get a diary, in an effort to try and convince myself that it wasn't gonna be a total waste of money. And now here we are, practically at the end of 2016 and unless I walk under I double decker, it's safe to say I'll make it till the 31st of Dec, and thus would have used my diary to its full capacity. Needless to say, i am putting my faith in the future, in my future, so I have bought a new diary, and I am quietly hoping to be able to use every single page of it.

02/10/2016

06/09/2016

It was a year ago today that I went to see the third doctor who told me to calm the f*** down, go home and chillex because there was nothing wrong with me. I went ahead nevertheless and had a private scan the same day, and the rest is history.

But this morning I went on a long walk with my son, because I still can. George Harrison is singing right into my ears and I can smell the spring flowers on the awesomely beautiful shores of Picton, the place I got well again and got to love. There's wind in my hair and sun on my face, future plans in my head, joy and love in my heart.

I know there will be more waiting rooms and more poking and tests (like tomorrow, eeeek ), but for now I put the last 12 months and everything in it behind me, let it all be where it belongs, in the past.

23/05/2016

This is my blood. Those perfect wee balloons are the red blood cells, floating around. There are a lot of nice big T cells that I didn't have much of before, and massive big sparkling white blood cells with smiley faces, shining like neon lights. Perfect.

This is a big deal. Back in September last year my red blood cells were stuck together into long chains looking like snakes and they weren't floating anywhere fast. I had a few pale, small, damaged white cells and practically no T cells. Then the situation started to improve slowly, then bang, back to snakes again, which was a bit if a downer. So I was looking forward to seeing my lovely naturopath yesterday for another wee tune up and to see what my blood looks like now, after another 3 months of doing good things, taking good things and being happy again. Nowdays success is a picture liked this, and man, was I happy to see it!

Wether it's feeling happy again, full of energy and enthusiasm that is making the difference or all the greens and thousands of pills and potions I've been pouring down my neck, I'm not sure. And who cares. Something seems to be working and that's all that matters.

11/05/2016

Pretty much everything I have to take tastes foul. The Budwig mixture of quark and linseed oil is disgusting. The apricot kernels are so bitter that each time I have to chew 15 of them, which is often, I have to psych myself up for it. Wheatgrass powder in water is also hard to stomach. So in the past months I've been experimenting with ways of making what I need to take a bit more palatable. This morning I have quark, linseed oil, apricot kernels, apricot kernel oil, wheatgrass, almond milk, walnuts, quince, grapefruit from the neighbour's tree, graviola, essiac tinture, iodine, zinc and chromium all together, and it's nearly drinkable. Now I just have to tackle the turmeric cooked with coconut oil and that's truly disgusting.

16/04/2016

Now I have a legitimate excuse to stay in bed for an extra hour every day. I got this high tech pump for my leg with the lymphoedema. It's more for prevention than treatment, as I' m planning on having nice thin ballerina legs preferably on both sides for the next 39 years. Feels really nice, and all the extra reading I'll be able to do now while this thing is puffing away!

09/04/2016

It must have been some kind of morbid curiosity back in October that made me request back the tumor and my other bits that got surgically removed during the operation. Then it took me 2 and a half months to get my s**t together and actually go and pick it all up in a nice brown paper bag.

I'd never seen a cancerous tumor before, and looking at one probably won't be my favorite passtime in the future, either, as they're not exactly pretty. As far as cancerous tumors go, this puppy was a well grown specimen, one that even an expert would get excited about, I'm sure. It needed 2 palms to hold it, and that's in its pitiful, shrunken pickled state.

It's a weird thing, sitting with your tumor in your hand, the very thing that made such a good effort at killing you; yet there is some strange connection going on here. I don't hate it, if anything, I'm more fascinated than anything else. After all, not so long ago it was part of my body, grown by my body; I believe, in the beginning out of wisdom, if maybe a bit overzealous. In any case, there was a reason for it to grow.

And once again, I'm humbled by my body and the struggle it put up for me for so many years to keep me alive while I was totally oblivious to it all. It's nearly unbelievable that it managed to stop a massive big bu**er like this from growing other little mates elsewhere to keep him company, and made it stay solitary for so long. It was just sitting there silently for years, as if the plan wasn't really to kill me off after all, but to teach me a difficult lesson or two that I couldn't be taught any other way with that thick skull of mine.

And now that I've done this, I'm really pleased that I did, as much as I wasn't looking forward to it. It gives me some closure. I've seen it, and now I can try and start to release all the fear, trauma and sadness it caused. I can also thank it for all the goodness it brought into my life. And I guess I'm one of the lucky ones after all, who gets to hold her own cancerous tumor as opposed to a pathologist doing the same during my post mortem yelling out with excitement: " holy cow, look out that big whopper! " with me lying there all stiff and purple.

So now it's time to say goodbye to you, tumor, I'll bury you in up in the hills of Picton, one of the most beautiful places I know, you posh thing. Not many tumors up there, I don't think, so you can't complain. Rest in peace now and never return.

04/03/2016

Yes, people often say the wrong thing. My favorite is " my uncle had the same cancer, he died very quickly". Or the other classic, " you'll be alright" after a long spill of how I'm not alright, in the middle of a feeling-sorry-for-myself bout. The ones I hate the most though are "it's not fair" or " f**k cancer".
I guess it's hard to know what to say to someone with a life threatening illness. I find that when in doubt, the best thing is to just listen and say nothing. Silence is gold.

The emotional impact of the experience lingered, inspiring her to design a newly launched series of Empathy Cards.

15/02/2016

It's been a long time since I last wrote in this blog, and it's mainly because I wanted this to be a source of positivity and inspiration for myself and maybe even for others. And well, the truth is that the last couple of months I've been really struggling mentally, and it hasn't been very positive or inspirational. But then of course the cancer journey hardly ever is.

Just like with anything else, great danger brings adrenalin, staunchiness, and the courage to fight. An attitude of kicking ass, the desire to show this thing that I'm stronger.
Then things calm down, surgery's over, life starts to return to some kind of normal again. The body is getting better, but the head...the head is seriously f**ked. Fear starts to creep in: what if this thing is bigger than me after all, what if it comes back and gets me.

There's no such thing anymore as a small wee twinge here or there. No more oh, crap, I ate too much, my guts are playing up a bit or I have a stich, I have some air stuck in my ribs. No. It's the cancer. And it's now surely in my guts and in my liver, and in my whole body, and possibly in my brain too, because yesterday I forgot 2 words again, and last week that phone number escaped me.

And slowly but surely, anxiety becomes a constant part of life, it becomes my default setting, and it envelops me and overwhelms me until there's nothing else I can think of. The future is uncertain, and will be until I have at least 10 years clearance. For me, I think the biggest loss in this whole thing is the loss of being carefree.

I'm not sure how to go from here, how to be brave. All I know is that I seriously have to get my s**t together, and get back into that positive space I used to be in. I know it's possible, because others have done it, and if others have done it, then I can do it, too.

I rediscovered this video today. It helped me enormously when I first saw it, and it's really good to see it again. Maybe this is what I need to do: watch it every morning. I hope someone else out there might like it, too. We're all fighting or own battles.

05/02/2016

http://www.utrend.tv/v/one-second/

25/12/2015

This is the Christmas I wasn't supposed to see. Back in September it was a hard thing to hear,I must admit. But despite of all the bad predictions I am very much here, feeling better than ever.

Maybe this is exactly what I needed: to be with the people I love the most, to be with my family. My family lives dispersed around the globe but this Christmas we all got together in Budapest, where we grew up, where we know every corner, every bakery, every good cinema. Where we can speak the language without an accent and no one asks where we came from because we sound like everyone else, because we are home.

So now, being back here, seeing my children together again, seeing my nephew I haven't seen for over 10 years, means the world to me. Eating my mum's cooking and baking means the world to me. Seeing my daughter again after nearly a whole year means the world to me. And being able to share my beautiful and slightly crazy family with the man I love, means the world to me.

And of course in the circumstances I can't help but wonder at times, if this is gonna be my last Christmas. But if it is, then I am happy for this one to be the last one as this is the best one I've ever had, I think.