So I write to you again, from somewhere other than South Africa. I am in London, and contrary to what you are thinking, No, I am not here for a check-up or any medical related appointment. I am here to see a man about upholding a deal that was put into place many months ago when life was a little harder, and the light surrounding life could have been easily snubbed out.
For those of you new to my "situation", my name is Bradley Woodhouse, I am a 24 year old male from Durban, South Africa, I have an incredible family and girlfriend, and recently beat Brain Cancer. I have spent the better half of a year fighting cancer, which with all considered is a very short amount of time. My case is a little different to cut and dry, live or die cancer. Mine is something I will be living with for the next few years, the incredible doctors I have been lucky enough to work with were unable to extract the remaining third of the tumor for fear of damaging what needed not be damaged. We made a collective decision to go into a form of active monitoring. So we are now in this phase of monitoring the cancer that resides within my skull.
It is a tough realization, and no one wishes nor benefits from cancer. The only foreseeable advantage that I can identify, as I try to do in life, is to recognize that it is probably the best thing that has ever happened to me. It opened my eyes in so many different ways, it made me recognize the frailty of life, and that it is something that truly needs to be lived. I nearly had all of it taken away, and only when you are on the brink of losing all, or have lost everything do you realize how incredible life, and the opportunities afforded in it, are.
After my third and final brain surgery, after they had cut a 15cm incision down the back right hand side of my head, and I had endured an 8 hour surgery, and woken up to alarm bells, a swollen tongue and my parents pleading that I squeeze their hands in hope that I was not paralyzed, I was moved into ICU. This was an ICU different to any other, and the care I experienced there is the most professional care I will ever witness. With that being said, the best nurses in the world could not have prevented the episode I experienced whilst in ICU. I awoke to see nurses, plural, running towards me. I was aware from the prvious operation that each patient is afforded 1 nurse, so for me to see 3 nurses tending to me for some unknown reason was new to me. I couldnt speak, all I could feel was the sound of my heart in my ears, and an overwhelming feeling of dread. I know this may sound silly, but at the time I thought I was dying, because the nurses were on such a high alert. They had to call my parents back to the hospital in an attempt to calm me down. The reason I needed to calm down was because my heartbeat and pulse was off the charts and we all know where that can lead if it is a prolonged episode.
It was then that I made a deal with my father that when all of this is over, the tide had passed and we had ridden out the storm, that I would abscond, I would see the world and all the places I very nearly didnt. It has been a deal I have held on to since the second it was struck. Very few people are given the opportunity to see the world. I knew that I had to take that deal, hold onto it, and realize that it isnt just a trip, I know that the next few months will shape me, yet again, into a better person.
This blog will be a means of communicating with people who would like to know where we are (my girlfriend and I), what we are up to and just to show people that when all the chips are down, and you are looking down a very long and dark barrel, you can set your mind up in a way that you will find the positives amongst a million negatives and some way it will beat all of them!
