As part of each issue of Flourish Magazine, we release digital content alongside our free print magazine, on the Artlift and Yes to Life blogs. This is often content we couldn’t fit into the magazine’s limited pages, or film and music, but that we loved and wanted to show the world.
This issue of Flourish Magazine was on the theme of the ‘Body’, with submissions from those living with or beyond cancer received through an open call for creative responses to the theme.
Read the print magazine online for free here
When Your Body Lets You Down
We’ve all got one: big or small, short or tall.
There’s no middle ground with the latter group and when you go from what you thought was a healthy body, to being told you’ve a very sick body, well… that changes the game, forever.
I’d always trusted mine. Confident that it wouldn’t let me down. I’d had 3 babies, an appendicitis, minor surgery, high cholesterol, cysts, but nothing that stopped me in my tracks until I had an ectopic pregnancy and suddenly this body had let me down, badly. I grieved, eventually got back up and carried on.
Exactly 10 years later I found myself questioning my body like never before: breast cancer had come to call. Cancer! How on earth had that happened? I was healthy (I thought); not overweight, no family history of the disease. How? Why?
Much research later and I realised that I had a classic Type C (Cancer) profile:
- I was stressed, grieving the sudden death of my mother the year before.
- I had had a root canal in recent months.
- My vitamin D levels were low.
- and on it went.
Who knew genetics plays only a small part in cancer risk (current estimates are less than 5%). Who knew that bacteria sealed into a root canal can seep into our internal system and cause chaos? (My 5.5cm tumour was located on the same meridian as the root canal). Who knew how important vitamin D is for our health? (I wasn’t aware that I should be checking my level). Who makes the connection between a sustained period of grief and a crash in our immune system that can allow cancer to call? Not me.
But I do now – and sharing health professionals’ knowledge and first-hand patient testimonials is what we do at double-zero.org, the non-profit charity I set up when healed.
We’re proud to be featured as a recommended resource by Yes to Life and proud to feature their wonderful work on our cancer resource: https://double-zero.org/cancer-websites/
I’m regaining confidence in mine, armed with knowledge which we are sharing with every – ‘Body’ look after their ‘Body’ as best they can.
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