This is Me. Becoming Me.

A CHAPTER OF PAIN, FEAR, PEACE AND THE WOMAN I’M STILL LEARNING TO BE.

Photo by Emanuele - Your Story In Photo’s

It's been a very long time since I last wrote, and yet this is not the first time I have tried to write. Somewhere between my last blog post and today, I have lost my voice and have been gripped with fear.

Not my physical voice, but the one that comes from deep within me, the one that translates my emotions into language, my pain into purpose and my experience into words.

That voice has been silenced by exhaustion, choked by tears, buried beneath waves of fear, fatigue, and the sheer weight of what this journey has demanded of me. The PTSD, the darkness and in some way, some form of survivor's guilt. Questioning, processing, learning and accepting.

I've sat at this desk so many times, fingers poised, thoughts circling like birds who can't quite land. And every time, I've walked away, too full of emotion or too fragile to speak. So many of you have written to me. Kind, beautiful messages. Messages of encouragement, prayers, and unwavering support. I have felt your love. I have needed your love. And I know that I owe you so much more than my silence.

So here I am. Writing. It may not be my best. I am still healing. But honest and here.

To explain the silence, we must go back—pages, chapters, what feels like a whole lifetime ago. I will take you there. Slowly. One post at a time. But for now, let me begin simply, with where I am.

My treatment plan began with what is known as neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NACT), followed by interval debulking surgery, then adjuvant chemotherapy. In simpler terms: chemo first, to shrink the cancer. Surgery next, to remove what could be removed. And more chemo after that, to mop up what might remain. A plan, a protocol, a path that has become familiar to so many warriors like me.

As I write this, I am cancer-free and in remission. Anyone who understands the stages of cancer knows that at Stage 4, those words feel sacred, fragile and unreal.

I am currently undergoing maintenance treatment, which is 18 rounds of Avastin. I've completed 10. The side effects have been punishing. In many ways, harder than chemo itself. For nearly six months, I lived with migraines that felt like thunder in my skull, pain that locked my neck in place, and fatigue that turned minutes into marathons. I couldn't sit at a desk. I couldn't focus. Writing felt as distant as a dream.

There were days, many of them, when I wanted to stop the treatment altogether. But Avastin offers me a 20% increase in my survival rate. And in this game, every percentage point is hope. The percentage is too high. So, I've stayed the course. Because more than anything, I want to live.

We've just returned from the most exquisite holiday in Portugal.  A week that filled every fibre of my being and soul. For the first time in over a decade, we had all our children together, in one place, at one time. Through the lens of my life now, these moments take on a different hue. I don't know how many holidays I have left. There may be many. Or this may be the last. That thought is not a surrender to fear; it is a simple acknowledgement of the truth.

I shouldn't be here. The prognosis, the scans, the odds, they all pointed to a different ending. But I am here. And that changes everything. I take nothing for granted. I appreciate every smile, every sunset, every ordinary moment that is suddenly extraordinary simply because I am still alive to witness it. I love my family, my friends and my warrior women because without them, this journey would have been impossible.

My spiritual sign from the universe is a white butterfly. When I see one, I know deeply and instinctively that I am on the right path. They often appear at moments when I need reassurance, when I question, when I feel sad. White butterflies, like white feathers, have become gentle nods from my internal spiritual connection.

Today, I asked Bayan, "Why can't I write? Why can't I find the words?" I felt my eyes well up before he could answer. He looked at me and said, "Because your life has been like that of a butterfly. Different stages. Different cycles. Different emotions."

I sat with that. I let it settle deep inside me. And then I meditated, asking the universe for guidance: What is the purpose of this experience? What am I here to say? And how do I begin again?

When I see a white butterfly, I feel peace. Deep, breath-catching peace. A fleeting reminder that life is both impossibly fragile and unspeakably beautiful.

It wasn't until cancer entered my world that I understood how deeply my soul was tied to this gentle creature. The butterfly doesn't begin in beauty. It begins in darkness, wrapped in a cocoon, breaking down everything it once was. That undoing is what allows the transformation.

Cancer, in many ways, became my cocoon. It stripped me bare. It undid me. It brought me to my knees. There was nothing graceful about it. It was violent. It was disorienting. It was raw.

But like the butterfly, I have emerged. Not untouched. Not unchanged. But transformed.

I carry wounds, but I also have wings.

The white butterfly, for me, is a symbol of spiritual growth. Of resurrection. Of becoming. It reminds me that I didn't just survive, I evolved. I am not the same woman who walked into this storm. I am softer in places. Stronger in others. Wiser in ways I never asked for, and yet I can now cherish.

I glide differently through life now with a quiet resilience and a reverence for the ordinary. I honour the pain, the loss, the unbecoming. I honour the journey. Because it made me. It gave me these wings. The white butterfly doesn't just appear to me. It is me.

And so, I begin again. With renewed courage. With renewed strength. With a voice that may have trembled, but has not been lost.

I recommit to the purpose that first brought me here to raise awareness, to tell the truth, to walk alongside others in their darkness and remind them that there is light.

This is me. Still healing. Still learning. Still becoming.

And I'm not done.