Every morning, since I was diagnosed, in the first few seconds of waking, I would forget I had cancer.
Then BANG! All the dread, fear and anxiety hits like a tsunami wave.
It drowns you. It consumes you. It doesn’t leave you.
I liken it to grief. When my Dad died, I experienced similar emotions. Those first few seconds of normality in the morning and then woosh, in comes the sadness, grief and realisation that someone you loved so much in the world is no longer there.
It’s as if life as you once knew it, no longer exists. You’re literally grieving your life. You’re grieving the safety net of being healthy, of having a future, of being carefree.
Now, every day, there are fearful currents underlying every interaction you have.
You’re being brave for your kids, trying to ease their worries all the while feeling like a complete imposter. You try to keep things balanced yet can’t help but snap at them for the smallest things. You catch yourself and feel bad again, feel fearful again and just want to sit in the corner and cry your heart out. Wishing it would all go away.
When it all gets too much for them and they cry and say, ‘I don’t want you to die Mummy’, oh how it breaks you. You don’t know what to say because you don’t want to lie to them, yet you want to be hopeful but, in the end, it’s just a complete muddle so we all end up crying. Me, full of fear, my family, full of fear. It never goes away.
The worst times are when you are finally feeling some sense of normality, maybe being out for a coffee, in the sunshine, feeling ok and BANG! Fear likes to pop his head over your shoulder again and sing ‘nah nah nah nah’, fingers in his ears and blowing raspberries in your face – you can’t get away from me – I’m a part of your life now! You sit there trying to keep the conversation going but inside you’ve just felt your whole body go completely cold, it starts to shake, and the tears are ready to gush a waterfall. But you contain it, you don’t want to spoil an otherwise ‘normal’ outing. You want to seem ok to others, you don’t want to bring them down again, not when you’ve spent the whole morning crying already.
I had to look at my fear square on.
Is it a fear of dying? I certainly don’t want to die but no, I don’t think I am scared of dying. It’s that dying comes after pain – that’s what I’m scared of. Dying from cancer is a slow, horrible, painful experience. It grows until your body can no longer function, so all the doctors can do is keep you comfortable with pain medication until your body decides its time. I watched my Dad die this way. This is my fear.
It’s also the unknown. Is there more cancer in my body? Is it growing? Is it spreading? Will I heal? Will I die? When? How? There is so much unknown… and fear loves the unknown.
I thought fear would never go away. It’s intense. It’s heavy. It still comes to visit now and then too. But I got to the point where I thought f*#k you fear! Life’s too short (and now my life might be shorter than I hoped!) to be consumed by an emotion. If there is any emotion I want to be consumed by, its Joy… Joy gets a capital letter, fear doesn’t (it doesn’t deserve it!)
I’m using my fear to fuel me. If I am going to die, then I’m not going to let fear boss me around. I am learning ways to quieten the fear, even smash it out of the park most days! Because there is too much to be grateful for while I am here. There is too much love around me and in me and I choose to focus on that.
“To offer no resistance to life, is to be in a state of grace, ease and lightness”
Eckhart Tolle
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