The Story So Far...

I’m Kea and I’m a 24-year-old with Stage IV signet cell cancer (I’d never heard of it either. It’s not one of the cool cancers that get coloured ribbons and head-shaving charity days. That’s why sometimes I like to tell people that I have a more interesting cancer, like ovarian cancer. I’m allowed to lie about it because I have cancer). I also enjoy old movies and Thai food.

The idea for this blog came about shortly after I started my first round of chemotherapy and had gone out for some Indian food to celebrate the cessation of my nausea. My friend Julia (amazing lady who I once pledged to marry – I may still follow through on that), who I suspect may have been slightly tipsy, suggested that I write a book about my experiences as a young cancer sufferer.

Kea: I suppose it would give me something to do while I’m trapped in my house
under the influence of chemo...
Julia: Yeah bro, your story is really interesting.
Kea: But I’m not a very good writer.
Julia: That’s okay, I’ll fix it with my mad editing skillz and then it’ll get published and we’ll be rich!

(Note: I may have made Jules sound like a homeboy for dramatic effect. She is not a homeboy.)

The next day I wrote a fairly boring opening paragraph then promptly gave up on it. I kept meaning to come back to it, but then I finished my treatment and figured my life would be normal and not worth documenting anymore. Now that cancer has decided to feast on my innards once more, I’ve resurrected the idea in blog form, because it’s easier to manage for a non-writer like myself and also I’m curious to see whether anyone I don’t know will read it. Do people really just go online thinking “Hmm, I’d really like to hear what’s going on inside a complete stranger’s head instead of messing around on Facebook or looking at porn”? Oh, and hopefully this way when something new happens in the cancer saga, I won't have to repeat the story as many times because some people might have read it here.

Before I lay bare the minutiae of life with cancer, I should give a brief summary of the story so far.

1985 – 1997
Happy but uninteresting childhood, unless you count the fact that I was raised in a Mormon family and my father had several wives. Okay, I’m making the extra wives part up in the hopes that the sensationalism will get me a publishing deal which will lead into the production of a tear-jerking film starring a B-grade celebrity who is 43% more attractive than me (casting suggestions welcome).
1998 – 2003
Awkward teenage phase. Being Mormon, there was none of the usual sex, drugs or alcohol, so I expressed my teenage rebelliousness by going on exchange to Malaysia for a year and eating all the roti canai and nasi goreng I could handle.
2003 – 2008
Struggled through a 5-year degree without Centrelink support, instead relying on pizza delivery and checkout-chicking to finance my existence, hence accruing a massive credit card debt. I did not see this as an obstacle to spending a year studying in Chile, or traipsing around the world with my 16-year-old sister in tow, or briefly running away to Mexico with my boyfriend.
2009: Year of the Epic Fail
Began year full of still-somewhat-youthful optimism, intent on forging my career as a primary school teacher, influencing impressionable young minds in the public school system, moving out of my parents’ house and smashing all my credit cards with a sledgehammer. Instead discovered I had a giant tumour on my left ovary. Had crazily invasive surgery during which the doctors discovered the tumour was malignant and that there were cancer cells on the right one as well so he yanked both of them out. They weren’t sure exactly where the cancer had originated so just to be safe, they started some heavy chemotherapy that turned me into a hairless zombie for around 4 months. I spent a few weeks thinking all the bad stuff was over, before being hospitalised with a blood clot in my arm (That’s right, arm. Who gets a blood clot in their arm? It doesn’t even make sense. Unless you’re me). A few weeks later, my boyfriend, who was on holiday in Mexico, broke up with me over Facebook. The reasons he gave were all serious and emotional, but the paranoid self-loathing part of my brain was convinced that he just wanted not to feel guilty when he hooked up with a Mexican girl who drank tequila and wasn’t bald. My already fragile self-confidence disintegrated and I was convinced that the break-up was worse than having cancer.
2010: Everyone told me this year would be better than last year. Everyone lied.
After about a month of feeling sorry for myself, I tried to start putting my self-pitying pieces back together, enrolling in uni, taking my CV to every school within a one-hour radius and putting together awesome lesson plans. Work started trickling in and I was feeling okay, until my chest filled up with fluid which started crushing my lungs. When they did the surgery to drain it out, they found some cancer cells that managed to survive the previous chemo blitz.

So now it’s time for Kea Does Chemo: the Sequel. Opening at selected theatres, March 17th.

P.S. If you don’t know what reggaeton is then your life is severely lacking in both joy and awesomeness. Google it please. You have to do what I ask you to. I have cancer!