Being on a cancer ward is a strange and unusual experience.  While here everything is shared, from blood counts, to bowel movements (don’t ask and I would rather the doctors took that advice also), temperatures, family and friends histories be (be very worried), our backgrounds, when and how our cancer was discovered; everything.  What we don’t share is our plans for the future (although as I have said before Christmas dinner is discussed a lot), contact details or anything else linked to our life after here.  It is almost like mentioning the future might be bad luck.  One of the women that came back on my ward has only been in remission for 18 months and her cancer is back and while we are being supportive there is a part of each of us that is praying please not me.  Today however one of the women on the ward was discharged home and put under the care of another ward so she wont be back in here.  Now she has been in and out of here for months and when she left instead of saying anything about seeing her again we all just told her that we did not want her back.  It is a strange world that you live in when a goodbye means just that, it is a hope that you never cross paths again.  The reasons for this are many but I guess it comes down to the fact that if you are meeting them in the ward again it means that something has not gone right with your treatment.  Each and every one of us wants to go into remission and stay there and in order to make that a reality then we have to be off the ward and stay off the ward, but we don’t just want that for ourselves we want it for everyone in here and thus for us goodbye means just that  It means I don’t want to see you again.  It means good luck.  It means stay healthy and keep well. Most of all it means I know you can beat this.  So for the first time ever “Goodbye and I don’t want to ever see you again” is seen as a positive statement and one day soon I want these words said to me.  Once I am told that I am out of here I hope to hear these words said to me and sadly unlike everyone else on my ward I hope that it is the first and last time I hear them.