It was a shock last weekend to confront my original diagnosis and no amount of reassurance, from myself and others, removed my visceral reaction. My struggling-to-survive intellect said one thing, my emotions another. I emailed C, my breast-care nurse, to confess my stupidity in Googling at 2am, I rang the Breast Cancer Now helpline on Monday to talk to a nurse, I talked to Kiera Sunday, I talked to Judy Wednesday; so here I am a week later later with a slightly less visceral reaction. However, it’s achieved more by avoidance than by rationalisation and acceptance. I know if I’m to move on, I need that latter.
I got through the last year in Land of Denial. It was a smart strategy that got me achieving a load of firsts and it served me well. But as the months progressed, I became aware that it was time to emerge and time to face what others face right at the start. Personally I think they make their lives more difficult and more fearful just when they need all their resources to cope with treatment but that sounds a bit smug considering you couldn’t have got more fearful than me - I was just afraid of different things.
Kiera repeated almost exactly what Den had said: when you start studying statistics, you are presented with data and you use it to prove both sides of a theory, showing that statistics can be used and abused as Mark Twain maintained. It kind of helped. The Breast Cancer Now Helpline nurse tried to reassure me but I could tell she was reluctant to tell me to ignore the initial diagnosis so I can’t say I felt much better. Then I got C’s reply to my email, reiterating her ‘lecture’ on statistics at our meeting on Friday. Interesting that it reassured me on Friday but not later, even though nothing had changed except the addition of one word to my understanding: poor.
C wrote “You’re wellness might be as long as it was ever going to be without cancer. Somehow you have to find a way of not letting what might happen tomorrow spoil your today. How do you do that? When well, enjoy well - put yourself in the most comfortable camp Jan. Which camp have you put yourself in just now? Yes, it’s coming back or no, it’s not. Or could you manage ‘well, it’s not there now so let’s enjoy camping.’ Of course, it might not be as simple for you now, you might jump between camps. Time is a great healer. Fear can be used in many different ways and many of them positive. No magic answer for how you feel...”
I love the idea of camping, of having one foot in each camp, of moving between the camps as my emotions require. So I guess that everything has helped me. There is a chance that the cancer may come back. There is a chance the cancer will never come back. The chance of the first is greater for me because of my original diagnosis but that still doesn’t mean it will come back. In the meantime, till I get my head round it or let time work its magic, I’ve booked an aromatherapy massage at the Haven for Tuesday, following my usual reflexology and reiki on Monday, so I’ll be completely chilled out. Later in the month, I have an acupuncture session booked (think it’s the same week as my mammogram, which I am not looking forward to, half the trouble or not) and am expecting great things from that.
Meantime, rather than bore you with the continuing saga of the building site, here’s something to make you smile. Yes, Dennis and I did rifle through debris to find the best, though quite why a 71yo and 68yo want conkers mystifies me. Maybe the best bit was being asked if it was true people used to put string through them. So here’s a bit of ancient history:
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