The Graceless Cancer Patient

The consultant leads me into a private room at the periphery of the outpatient day ward. I sit on the bed.

"We have the results of your CT scan and I'm afraid the news is not so good."

I hold my breath. I quickly decide to ask him if it's the worst case scenario, not believing it would be and thinking that we could then work back from that. "Is it cancer?" I blurt out. He hesitates and immediately, I am cast into panic-mode.

"You have a breast mass and we see some shadows on your spine".

I burst into tears at once and wail about the mammogram that I missed two and a half years prior. I know that this is bad, very bad. My symptoms had been so bad for so long that I know in my heart that this is what I will die of. I pace the room and push the consultant and registrar away when they ask to feel the lymph nodes in my left armpit. I alternately sit and stand and pace, rambling and hyperventilating, my mind racing. I am immediately truculent and angry. That anger will remain undiluted in me for the next month.

The above was my immediate reaction to being diagnosed with terminal breast cancer 29 months ago at the age of 31. I was not brave. I was not accepting. I was not stoic. I felt so different from all the terminal cancer patients I read about in blogs, who seemed to be so courageous, pragmatic and philosophical when they received their diagnoses. I did ask "Why me?". Many times. I did feel sorry for myself. I railed angrily against my diagnosis. Why could I not deal with this diagnosis with grace like others had done? It was like I now had something else to feel guilty about, as if there wasn't enough guilt already weighing down on me. I couldn't understand how others could be so zen about having their lives cut short so abruptly.

Since then, I have slowly become more accepting of my situation. Slowly. Back then, I thought I would never enjoy anything again. But, for anyone out there who is in this place now, I can quite confidently say that this too shall pass. To an extent. Life will never be the same, and I still cry daily. But I genuinely have plenty of moments where I do not think of cancer and where I can immerse myself fully in enjoying something - a film, a play, swimming in the sea. I've realised that everyone has their own way of getting to the point of acceptance. None of these different paths is wrong. Letting out all that emotion was what I needed. Feeling sad and angry at losing my future is nothing to be ashamed of. I am a curious person and it anguishes me still that I will miss out on so much.

So, if you are newly diagnosed and you feel that you are not handling it all with grace and stoicism, realise that you brain is doing whatever it needs to in order to normalise the situation as much as it can. Don't be distracted by how others are handling it. Ride it out.

This too shall pass.