…

I’m not writing this for people to look and feel sorry for me. I’m writing it because I need to have it down somewhere. I need it out of my head and somewhere physical. It’s completely raw and I have little care for the words that I use during it. I’m sure you’ll understand why once you’ve read it.

I don’t understand why I can’t get better. I don’t understand why the 14 chemotherapy drugs that I’ve been on over the years have failed or why I gave up half my leg to get better, because I’m still not fucking better. Apparently being scarred, poked, burned, cut open and poisoned isn’t enough to get rid of cancer, oh no. I’m sick, tired and fed up of it. I’m tired of being given false hope because someone hasn’t properly looked at my results. “The chemo’s working!” “There’s improvement!” “You’re doing well!”. The same phrases I’ve heard time after time and yet I still find myself having to go for treatment every week because this disease is relentless. Osteosarcoma, I hadn’t even heard of it and now my entire life revolves around it because it’s crept its way through every part of my body. When does it ever end? Apparently it doesn’t for me.

The feeling of being this age and knowing that I’m not going to grow up properly or have a family, I won’t see my friends accomplish their goals all because cancer decided that I can’t have that privilege. I can’t have the simple pleasure of being with my friends because I’m going to die.

Today my doctor asked me to choose between quality of life or longevity. I can stop treatment and live without the side effects of chemo and radiotherapy but I’ll have between 3 months and a year to live if I chose to do that. The other option is to continue with treatment knowing that it may not sustain my life for any longer and will make me feel like shit. There is a chance that it may tackle my cancer enough to try another method of treatment which would then put me into remission, but that isn’t guaranteed.

So here I am.

I don’t know what to do. I don’t know the best decision and I don’t know how to make it either. All I know right now, is that I want to be around people. I just want to be around the people who care about me. I don’t want to just disappear and for people to forget about me, it’s such a selfish motivation and I feel horrible for even saying it. There are people who I want to get closer to but I’m scared to do it in case I hurt them if something was to happen. I want to spend time with the people who have just come into my life because without them, I don’t know what I would do. I just want to enjoy my life without being scared of cancer because that’s all I’ve been frightened of for the last eight years. I don’t want to sound like I’m wallowing in my own self pity but right now, I can’t even think about what I’m doing tomorrow because I’m so frightened of this decision. I don’t want to die. I don’t want to leave the people I love behind. I don’t want to be alone in this and I’m scared.

 

Letter to my Lifesavers

Dear Patrick, Andy, Pete and Joe,

I’ll introduce myself first and foremost; my name is Eli, I live in Glasgow and have done so for all of my life. It’s a vibrant city filled with culture. You guys will probably already know though because you’ve played here a few times. Hopefully you all like coming here too!

Starting this letter is harder than I thought it was going to be. Not because I don’t know how to write it, but because I don’t know if I’m really going to be able to convey its meaning. I’ve tried writing this loads of times before but I never finish it, it’s quite frustrating. I don’t want to just write you another piece of fan mail, this is something that I’ve been wanting to say for years but have never been able to put into words exactly what I want to say.

I’ve been quite ill for a very long time. I was diagnosed with cancer in 2009, first with Leukemia and then with Osteosarcoma, when I was 11. Since then I’ve relapsed six times. Of all the things I’ve wanted to do in my life, having cancer wasn’t one of them; but beating cancer has always been at the top of my list. I’ve managed to do that for seven years but it doesn’t get any easier. I don’t want this letter to be all doom and gloom because that’s the exact opposite of who I am. I can’t emphasize this enough, but you are all the reason that I was able to get through my treatment. My biggest motivations in life are you guys. Every single time that you guys have come to Glasgow I’ve either been in hospital or been too unwell to attend, it pretty much devastated me every time. I don’t know whether that made me fight harder to eventually get the chance to meet you all but what I do know is that you have kept me fighting for the last seven years. Through every chemotherapy session, radiotherapy session, surgery and transfusion, you have always been there to pick me up and keep me going.

The current outlook for my diagnosis is that I will probably never not have cancer. It was the biggest blow that myself and my family have taken during this fight. It hasn’t stopped me and it never will. When I go in for treatment, the first thing I do is plug in my headphones and listen through your songs. Your music has completely changed the way I think about myself, it made me believe in myself. It takes away my fear of this disease because I know that one day I’m going to be standing in front of you all, watching you play the songs that literally saved my life. I could have stopped my treatment years ago, but you made me believe that actually; I am strong enough for this.

I write songs, sing and play gigs because you inspired me to. You told me that it was okay to be down, but I had to pick myself up again. You showed me that it’s not a bad thing to be a little bit different from everybody else. One day I want to be singing with you all, I want to meet you all and tell you in person how thankful I am to you all. Without you guys, I’m not sure that I’d be here today to write this.

My love for you and your music is so much stronger than my fear of cancer and for that, I will always be so incredibly thankful.

Please keep being the amazing, inspirational people that you are.

Eli.