The long term effects

*trigger warning this blog is about cancer and dying*

Me on the left and Sophie on the right. Yes I did like Damon Albarn.

When I was 25 one of my closest friends died of bowel cancer. Sophie was also 25 and we had known each other since we were 11. One of my dearest mates throughout secondary school, we were the awkward music club kids (she was a lot more musically talented than me). A properly quirky person, she played folk music, loved the terrible band Hanson and together we wrote a very catchy song about Pop tarts. I still can remember the sophisticated taste of pizza, chips and posh salad at her house after school on a Friday. 

Teenage years

Sophie first started to get ill when we were in our teens. A school trip to Wales and she was on the phone to her mum with stomach pains. On a camping trip she spent a lot of the time in our tent wriggling around with cramps. I feel guilty now because I thought she was a hypochondriac and my teenage-self was a bit put out by her constant problems. 

Eventually though it seems like all this got investigated, and my mum and dad sat me down to tell me that Sophie had cancer. She must have been 14. I didn’t know much about what that meant then and my memories are a bit blurry. I can recall getting the bus to visit her in the hospital when she was having treatment and was all hooked up to machines. And being quite chuffed that I was allowed to stay in at break times with her when she was back at school but still recovering.

Growing up

I’m going to skip a lot, but that time it all worked out fine, she  made it through and we went on to sixth form college. My circle of friends broadened. I discovered boys and alcohol and we didn’t hang out as much. Throughout uni we kept in touch off and on, mainly to go to gigs. But then the cancer came back, and then back again. I visited her in the hospital a few more times. I have a vivid memory of her woozy on painkillers telling me very loudly in front of her then boyfriend about what things would be like when she got her NEXT boyfriend. She travelled the world in a caravan. We went to Glastonbury. 

My memory is pretty murky about what happened next. Again, I have felt guilty about that, but I tell myself that I was a girl in her 20s muddling through with my own stuff. Over the next few years, things got worse; the cancer had stopped responding to treatment and soon enough Sophie was in hospital receiving palliative care.

The ripples

I have never had cancer, I don’t know what it is like. Yet the truth is that the long-term effects of cancer ripple out, and touch not just the person going through it, but those near them. I wasn’t Sophie’s family, I have got kids myself now and I can’t imagine how unbearable it was for her parents to lose their beloved only child. But losing my friend at such a young age warped my perception of the world. I became the hypochondriac I thought she was. I didn’t see the body as something to be trusted. The body could contain secret illnesses, that couldn’t be stopped and could take someone away too soon. At the time Sophie died, it never crossed my mind to get any support. I thought it was something I should just get on with.

I’m 39 now, but it was only last year that I was finally able to talk to a counsellor about what it was like to see my young friend dying. The image of Sophie in that state is no longer there, I didn’t want to see her like that.

All I can remember is holding her hand: it was soft and surprisingly warm.

Working in cancer information

Somehow I ended up working in health information, somehow most of the work I have done is to do with cancer. Somehow I have done lots of research into the experiences of people affected by cancer, whilst not quite coming to terms with my own.

I am not sure I consciously chose this path, but maybe Sophie had something to do with it. I now know that people with cancer can live, I have worked on lots of projects about living well with cancer. But I am still so sad it couldn’t happen for my friend.  

I think about Sophie when I am working sometimes. I wonder what she would think. She could be quite blunt, but she was cheeky and got away with it: once, after I stopped playing the clarinet and dropped art A Level she told me she thought I was flaky.

I hope she would be glad I’ve stuck at something good.  

I still dream about her.