Before we go any further, i think I should introduce you to the stars of the show. Bert and Ernie. Not the Muppet pair but my pair. Boobies.
Not the obvious choice to name a body part I’ll admit. I’m pretty sure the idea came from a friend of mine back in the day – meaning before Cancer reared its ugly head!
But rear its head it did. The idea of Cancer fills people with dread and understandably so. It kills. Not always but it does. There is no other way to put it.
It scares and throws life into another dimension. One you did not want to visit. Unless perhaps it is the dimension where Marvel is real and Thor is an oncologist, in which case I’d give it a go..
How Bert & Ernie were born
So back in 2004 when I had my first Breast Cancer diagnosis, I needed something to make it less scary. So, they were named. Bert for the left, Ernie for the right. And that’s as far as it got.
For starters, I had no social media presence whatsoever. I think I may have got my first laptop…. And perhaps some sort of internet….
But more than, people didn’t talk about cancer. There were no Facebook pages or groups or blogs or anything. There were forums on some of the cancer website but they were full of negativity, doom and gloom pushing me further down into the depths of despair.
Therefore, I was left to my own devices with the help of a MacMillan Nurse and an amazing day programme run by my local Hospice. Yes, I had friends. Awesome friends. But they didn’t know what to say or how to act in my presence, so I never talked about it.
So, Bert & Ernie never really got the appreciation they deserved, but for the record, Bert did amazingly well.
Obviously, I had intended never to speak about them again. But the universe intervened and gave me a second diagnosis in February 2019. It was Ernie’s turn.
The blog is all Ernie's fault..
It was partly because of Bert & Ernie that I decided to blog in the first place. That and the fact that I wished id had someone like me to follow or read about back “in the day”. So, they do feature quite highly in my tales of woe and joy.
It also made it easier for people to ask me about what was happening. “How is Ernie today?” is much more appealing than “How is your right breast today?”, don’t you agree? So, if it makes it easier to talk about then I consider that a win. A big win.
Yes, it shouldn’t be like that, but it is. There are still those who just don’t want to know. They don’t know how to act or talk around me. I’ve decided that’s their problem.
Me? I’m all about Bert this, Ernie that. In fact, just try and shut me up…
