Amelia

Three years ago, shortly after my first bowel cancer diagnosis, I met Amelia in an online support group. She too had just been diagnosed with Bowel Cancer and we were the same age. We instantly clicked. We shared our stories and our experiences. She was the biggest support to me because she genuinely knew everything that I was going through, because she was going through the exact same thing at the exact same time. We were both always in and out of hospital, at the same time, texting one another from our hospital beds. When we both couldn’t sleep, we’d keep each other company with texts that’d go right into the early hours of the morning. We went through chemo together & we had surgeries at the same time. But we didn’t just talk about cancer, we talked about guys, our friends and family, where we wanted to travel to, and we even planned a girls trip when we both had recovered. Amelia lived in Sydney and I in Adelaide. She was going to come here and I was going to go there, we had some great plans ahead of us.

In the year that we were chatting, I told her many things that I hadn’t told anyone else, purely because I knew she could completely relate. And she told me things she hadn’t told others either. I will never forget receiving some of her home made short bread biscuits in the mail because we had both lost sooooo much weight and this was her effort to help bulk me up. Even in her darkest days, she would still think of others.

Sadly, on 19 May 2015, Amelia passed and it broke my heart. Even though we had never met in person, our constant texts and Facebook messages over the course of the year made me feel like we’d known each other a lifetime. You don’t go through the exact same cancer as someone at the exact same time & share the things that we did & not form an incredibly special bond.

Still not feeling 100% myself, I flew to Sydney on my own to attend her funeral, where, despite never meeting me (and not even being sure if Amelia had ever spoken of me) her family and friends welcomed me with open arms. I have since been to Sydney several more times to see everyone, and their willingness to have me in their lives is nothing short of amazing! I even had my ‘hope’ tattoo done in Bondi on Amelia’s birthday with her beautiful friend Courtney holding my hand. Amelia’s Mum was one of the very first people to see it.

It has been incredibly hard without her, especially this second time around. I have experienced the very real feeling of “survivors guilt” and I live with that every single day. But I do have comfort knowing that I have one very amazing guardian angel forever watching over me. I also have Amelia’s Mum and her friends in my life now and I feel forever grateful for them. Their love, support and generosity has been nothing short of amazing!