19. The Land of Denial

I know ‘denial’ in oneself and in others can be very irritating, isn’t constructive and supposedly holds one back, Well, I got out of my meltdowns and have got through the past few months by frequent recourse to what I nicknamed Land of Denial.

Frequently, I was advised to ‘take it one day at a time.’ Sometimes it was one hour at a time! Surely that’s denial?

I accepted I had breast cancer. I accepted I had to have a radical mastectomy. I accepted I couldn’t avoid chemotherapy. But there’s only so much a mind can deal with, particularly one prone to obsessing about what ifs. So Land of Denial was/is a useful tool in my armoury and a way of controlling my phobic reactions. If it’s psychologically unhealthy, tough. I think I’ve lived enough years to understand what is destructive to my mental wellbeing and what isn’t. When friends asked how I was, I’d blithely reply ‘I’m happy in Denial Land.’

First, I decided I would keep my questions to the minimum and trust the experts. I still don’t know what was meant by “it even came out in your skin.” When I’m better, I’ll ask. It sounds scary and I have enough to scare me already. Though, thinking abut it, if it hadn’t come out in my skin, I’d not be writing this blog; I’d be happily living my life, oblivious to the cancer spreading its way determinedly into my lymphatic system and embedding itself in less reachable places in my body. By the time I found out - maybe two years time when I faced the next mammogram - it would be a terminal case.

Second, I refused to look up anything on the internet. My Google history is untainted by desperate searches for information and what x,y or z mean, let alone prognoses and statistical predictions for a ‘cure.’ The language is alarming enough: aggressive, invasive... If my consultant talks about seeing me in a year’s time for a checkup and my oncologist talks about 10 years on whatever nasty drug it will be, I can happily infer they expect a good outcome. That’s enough for me.

I limit my searches to practicalities - how to deal with cording, what to take to a chemotherapy session, how to prepare psychologically for going bald, what to eat when nothing tastes and, right now, how to deal with a sore mouth and incipient ulcers. After all, there are millions of women out there, and a few men too, who have those answers and are only too happy to help a fellow sufferer along.

Third, I’ve only skim-read Mr B’s letters to my GP. I had (have? I haven’t asked) grade 2 invasive lobular cancers but all margins were good except the axillary cancer... I stopped reading there. With my propensity to catastrophise, a little knowledge is dangerous. I’m leaving it to the experts.

I don’t want to know any more than I know already. Land of Denial enables me to achieve a level of peace of mind that helps me through to each new stage. Right now, I’m not thinking about the next session of chemotherapy. I’m just dealing with what the first session has done to me.