Inspired by your strength
"Suddenly it all feels like it's being snatched away."
Cancer survivor Charlotte Ridley tells her story
I was diagnosed with Lymphoma on 28th August, one year to the day that my mother had died from ovarian cancer. It is burnt into my brain.
To be diagnosed myself after losing my mother was a massive shock to my system, and one that took some time to take in. My mum had been given 7 days to live from diagnosis and she died on the seventh day, so when I was diagnosed, my first thought was panic-fear that I was going to die that quickly too and I wouldn’t have time to do all the things I previously thought I had a lifetime to do.
I guess you go through your life thinking you can do things next year or you’ll get round to it and then suddenly someone is giving you the news that they are ‘very worried about you’ and it feels like it is all being snatched away.
I remember sitting at my 18 month old’s bedside at night, crying into her pillow and wondering if she was ever going to remember me, suspecting that she wouldn’t. I couldn’t take it in and panic set in – followed by a determination to survive. I was admitted for chemotherapy at Heartlands Hospital in Birmingham four days after I was diagnosed; they said I couldn’t wait. I had to ring work and say ‘I won’t be in for six months from today’ and thank goodness, they were really wonderful.
"I knew I was going to fight, for my child and husband."
I knew I was going to fight it – once I knew what stage I was and what I was dealing with, I decided there was no way I would let it get me and I focused on coming out the other side. I lost two friends during that time who didn’t make it but I just had to make sure I did – for my child and husband.
I didn't have time to think about the implications of chemotherapy and my fertility. When I asked if I could freeze my eggs for the future, they told me I just didn’t have time. I had six months of chemotherapy and was also put in a fertility trial in partnership with the University of Warwick to determine the impact of chemotherapy on fertility.
The chemo was hard – for me it was what it does to you mentally – you spend one day being made ill, followed by two weeks recovering and then you have to tell yourself to go and make yourself ill again – it isn’t natural and I used to cry, scream, have tantrums and lock myself in the hospital toilet because I didn’t want to go in. My husband would have to make me come out and frog march me to the ward. I mean, you wouldn’t ask someone to put their hand in a fire if they knew it hurt your hand, and this was the same – it made you ill when you felt ok.
I also struggled mentally to cope with being in an enclosed space surrounded by ill people and I cried a lot and was very sick because of this – I was referred to a cancer counsellor who really helped me to manage my mental state and cope with the heightened anxiety I felt during chemo.
My hair fell out, but I didn’t really mind to be honest. I wore a pink beret all the way through so people didn’t really notice. I didn’t want pity. I wanted to be treated normally and I even arranged a photoshoot because I felt really proud of the strength I had to fight it – emotionally and physically. I wanted something to look back at when it was all over, and I still look at the shots and feel proud now.
"I was a different person after cancer – I no longer felt ‘safe’ ."
I was a different person after cancer – I no longer felt ‘safe’ in the way I did before and my counsellor helped me through it. He said, ‘Charlotte – yes you might die. But so might everyone else. All that’s happening here is that you are being told when other people are not, and you are having to face what others choose to ignore’.
That really helped me realise that life is short – and we should treat it like it is precious. So I did. But because I hadn’t felt ill pre-diagnosis at all, I knew that your normal body signals won’t necessarily pick it up which had been my assumption about cancer before so, for a good three years after, I was obsessed with checking myself all over every day for lumps and was constantly at the doctors. Every ache and pain was, in my head, a symptom and I have learned now that that is normal to feel that way.
"I'm less afraid to be me now."
However, I felt stronger as a person. I had been through so much and as much as it was one of the worst times of my life, it helped me to accept my own mortality and find the strength within me that I never knew I had. I try things now I would never have done before – I completed a triathlon, I’ve climbed mountains and I’ve taken risks. I focus on what makes me happy and I am less afraid to be me now.
I also had another child – I got pregnant quite quickly after my chemo ended which surprised me and my husband. I am over five years clear now, I have two beautiful and wonderful girls and I am living my life as much as I can.
I support cancer research at Warwick because patients deserve better treatments, and any efforts which reduce the side-effects and make it that little bit easier to fight are worthwhile."