This is my flatmate Sarah. Here we are in August, having moved out of the flat which due to a wild set of circumstances saw us share a bed, on and off, for almost 3 years while she tried to stabilise the cancer ravaging her body. Slowly and remarkably she did, defying every expert opinion along the way.
Unsurprisingly then, moving meant much more than a new postcode – even more than a bedroom each. We spoke at length that night, exhausted from hauling boxes in 31 degree heat but so happy and hopeful, about the next chapter. Her potential return to work, to dating. To all the things a 34-year-old should be doing.
Weeks later, with the last boxes just about unpacked, Sarah was told that three tumours are now attempting a take down on her brain. It came from nowhere, the most brutal of suckerpunches. With no time to process what was happening, symptoms started snatching everything she’d worked so hard for with alarming speed. Mobility, dexterity, balance, sight, speech – her independence – ripped away. Our little world shrunk entirely; confined to our new four walls and the hospital that quickly put her through brain radiation. While I worked at the table, tapping away quietly, Sarah lay exhausted on the sofa in the same room but another place entirely – barely able to move or speak, willing the drugs to give her respite from the skull-crushing pain.
Yet, through this unimaginable pain, her unwavering resilience remained. It was me – healthy and with nothing to worry about – silently tearing my hair out, yet when Sarah’s started falling out for real she simply laughed at her new mullet, such is the strength of her character.
And then we reach this morning, two weeks since treatment finished. While the world feels otherwise apocalyptic, today we’re holding a little bit of light within these walls. She can move again, slowly. New pain meds are doing their thing, and what I see when I see when I see this woman is the exceptional power of her precious, fragile brain. It’s a thing of ferocious determination, humour, humility. It’s the reason she’s still here and I’m so in awe of this woman, my unbelievable friend. Sarah, you are extraordinary.
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