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January 19, 2019

My FAKE "Battle"!

The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion. -Albert Camus
As I write this from my hospital chair I am saddened by the events that have lead up to this but this is one of the most important things I may ever write so open yuh ear dem n listen. Well in dis case yuh eye dem but ahyou kno wa ah mean.

If you know me you probably know that I am ill. I was diagnosed in April 2018 and since then a lot has changed and yet a lot has remained the same. I still enjoy Who's This Freddy's chicken, I still love soca while working hard in my gospel choir. I am not always happy but if I am being honest mental health has been a longtime struggle for me. Looking back I think the first time I was ever depressed was in 2006 at the age of twelve. So I am unable to say that this is all cancer's fault because it is not. What has changed the most is people around me, they have expectations and the idea of having to meet them all is slowly driving me insane. I want to explain.

There is not a day since I shared my diagnosis that I have not been told what to do. Stop eating meat, become a vegan, drink this, smoke that, "this is the cure" kind of BULLSHIT. To say I am exhausted by all of this would be to say we humans need water to live. THIS IS KNOWN! I have vocalized this and yet everyday people post fake articles talking about some "magic plant" or a cover up by pharmaceutical companies. There is an uncontrollable urge that impels me to do the one thing I should never do and that is to scroll to the comment section. It is there that a real battle begins; the educated versus the ignorant conspiracy theorists who were never explained the importance of proper sourcing. At some point I am forced to tell the truth and after I share my story the inevitable happens, someone will say that they hope I win my battle.

As the youngest of six children, I am a fighter because how could I not be? My brothers are insane! I know what it feels like to have odds stacked against me and to fight until I make it. However, cancer is really not a battle, not to me at least. Somehow these two very different things have become related if not synonymous. The trouble with this is that I am not fighting anything. I did not choose this as some form of sacrifice or out of patriotism to the human race. I am just sick. I do not have the strength and courage that is expected and why should I? For there is no amount of positivity that will tell my body to stop behaving badly and to produce red blood cells instead of copious amounts of white ones. Prayers do not work in the way we hope and neither do positive thoughts. So I have given up on that so I want you to as well. When I was fourteen one of my aunts died. My aunt was beautiful beyond description and I recognize that it was my family who needed to be brave, have courage and pray for strength.

My aunt Rosemary was physically weak, so were my aunts Rosita and Shirley. I am as well. I cry often, I scream more and I cheerful. I understand that there is sometimes no hope to be offered, just peace. I do not know if I will ever get better and there is nothing wrong with that. I am not fighting so I can never give up. I am living. That means that I go to the hospital, crack jokes, get poisoned and go home to do it again in a day. I am perfectly fine with this. What I want is for others to be as well. I want people to accept that suicide is a real thought, that euthanasia is an option and that living is excruciatingly hard. Instead of hearing people talk about the insanity that is war I want religious people to pray that God grants me more good days than bad. I want everyone to ask how I am doing, what I ate and how I am spending my free time. I want people to see that every cancer patient is different yet very much the same. We all have to accept that sometimes there is nothing else. If my cancer dies I will be grateful and I will be a survivor, not a victor. If it does not I will be a person who died from a very horrible disease. I will be a person who tried to get better and did not. I will not be the poor young adult with the tumor, bad bone marrow, radiation and operations.  I will be Urisha and  I will be free.

XOXO,

IslandGyal