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I'm now 50 years old, an age I didn't actually expect to see, because
two years ago, aged 48, I was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer.
I thought I'd escaped it - I was diagnosed when I was 36 with primary breast cancer -
and that was horrid enough - fairly medieval treatments back in 1999.
Some mornings I can't even get out of bed. It's difficult to function - to look like
a normal human being - and people will say "Hi Sarah, how are you doing?"
And I'll say "Yeah... *** to middling."
And they'll say "But you're looking great!"
And sometimes I feel like I really am dying from the inside here. It's quite sad to live with.
Wouldn't it be great if it just bloody stopped.
I hate what cancer has done to me. I hate what cancer has done to my family.
I hate the fact that I've not had a family because of cancer.
I feel sorry for my husband who is living with a dying wife.
I have... anticipatory grief, I think they call it technically.
How many women die of this a month in this country? A thousand?
That's three old style jumbo jets going down every bloody month with it.
How can we stop that?
So what's my dream? I just wish we didn't have to get it. And I wish
that other women coming alongside and behind me don't have to contemplate it at all in
the first place. But if we can't stop that, then perhaps we don't have to die from it.