Only what’s relevant to my Cancer Journey (not a term I plan to use again - I hate cliches), promise. I’ve had mental health problems as long as I can remember. I’ve tried everything going - psychological therapies, medications, almost every alternative therapy going. I will never give up. It took me till my 40s to realise what it was all about. It’s enough here to say that I have severe anxiety, am prone to panic attacks, have emetophobia (a life-controlling fear of vomiting which affects every aspect of my life - I was 5 when I was last sick) and a consequent eating disorder. I need total control or I fall apart.
Well, now I fell apart. Meltdown. Anxiety overload. Panic attacks which diazepam couldn’t touch. Dennis was his usual rock - concerned and supportive, doing just what I needed and no more. But he couldn’t conceal his anxiety (he’s not given to doing emotions - probably best in this relationship!) and I felt an overwhelming guilt that I’d added cancer to his mental burden. Cancer didn’t bother me. It’s only a disease and it’s treatable, not the death sentence it was. All I cared about was that people are sick when they have a general anaesthetic. My mind is stuck in the 1950s!!
I rang my surgery and asked to see a woman doctor who would understand about how women might feel about a mastectomy and was good with mental health. I can picture her but don’t recall her name. I can thank her for about an hour’s break from anxiety as she made me so fucking angry. She’d made her mind up what was wrong: ‘any woman would feel as you do,’ ‘breast cancer can seem terrifying...’ NO, you’re not listening. I’m not terrified about the cancer. I’m terrified of my panic attacks. The best I got was advice to take 3 diazepam a day and no, she was running late so she couldn’t have a word with my husband. Fury can be a good break.
Diazepam didn’t help, as I knew it wouldn’t. I only use it when I need it (increasingly less often than I did) but it barely touches the full onslaught of anxiety and panic in me. A phone consultation with another doctor led to a prescription for propranolol which dried my mouth more than anything but did take the edge off the shaking. I stopped the diazepam, except when needed for crises, and kept to one propranolol in the morning. I was back in control.
But I had to go back to the hospital for more results.
Another ‘Fuck’ response: a 2.5cm malignant tumour under my breast, a 1.5cm tumour leading to my underarm, the two malignant little bumps AND all three lymph biopsies cancerous. Dr T the radiologist may have been short on interpersonal skills but he’d been thorough! Change of plan: full mastectomy and axillary clearance next week.
Then an odd thing happened. Something switched off in my brain and I stopped being afraid. Resignation? Acceptance? Pragmatism? My psychotherapist seemed to see it as denial (and I can see there is a tinge of that now, but not then). I felt it was something different. I felt reconciled to the fact that I was having to try uncharted waters.
However, my inner saboteur wouldn’t allow that level of comfort: three days before the operation, I sipped my cup of tea and soaked the duvet cover - I couldn’t swallow properly and I still can’t. It’s like my mind has a gremlin that doesn’t like me feeling remotely comfortable. That leaves me taking tablets with tiny nibbles of banana and drinking with a straw, tiny amounts at a time - more air than fluid. Fortunately I’ve no problem with solids, just fluids. Weird. Well, not for me given my mental health history.
Bring on the surgery...
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