A cancer diagnosis: a different ‘there’
Many of us have heard the phrase, “I was coasting along in life when….” And then the sentence ends with a description of an unexpected, life-changing event that stopped someone in their tracks, made them reflect on their priorities, or spurred them to embark on a tree change, sea change or to just think, ‘To hell with all of this, I am going to forget about the mortgage, the 9 to 5 grind, and the rest of life’s challenges, which are weighing me down and just follow my dreams’. The phrase is often an indicator of an unforeseen change in a person’s life, initiated by an experience or event, which more often than not was unwanted. It is a phrase which warns of tumultuous times ahead. It is a phrase, which at its core, signifies a deviation from the master plan, often signalling a brutal awakening that we have been fooled into thinking we were at the controls, and steering life’s ship, when the reality is so far removed from this.
About 15 months ago, I had cause to start using this very phrase in my conversations with friends, colleagues and family. You see, my family and I (three girls and husband of nearly 30 years) had been coasting along, I was a fulltime lecturer at a university, two of my girls were at university and one at school, husband working fulltime, sure things were a bit crazy, and of course as one would expect in a busy household, stress levels were off the scale sometimes, but all in all we were in a pretty good place. That was until I finally decided to take myself off to the doctors to investigate a lump I found in my right breast. I really didn’t think too much of it, “I’m in control here”, I thought, and so what if the radiologist came in and wanted to do a biopsy, “Just a precaution”, he said, after all the mammogram earlier that day hadn’t shown anything! So I was able to enjoy a few days of blissful ignorance until my doctor’s appointment at the end of that life-changing week. My doctor’s appointment at 10am will give me just enough time to get to my meeting at 11, or so I naively thought. But the universe had other plans, “Ah, you fool! Just who do you think you are?”, and as you may have guessed, I didn’t make it to the meeting that day. It was the day I was diagnosed with breast cancer.
Nothing prepares you for that kind of news… absolutely nothing, especially when you have been coasting through life, supposedly in control! And nothing smacks you in the face, and stops you abruptly in your tracks like a cancer diagnoses! I mean how are you even meant to feel? Anger, fear, panic, anxiety, loss? Well throw them all into the mix and stir in a few more raging, and at times irrational, emotions for measure. But perhaps most poignant was the realisation I no longer had control, and the tight grip I thought I had on my life, now felt like nothing more than a limp touch. Within two weeks I had more tests than I care to remember, and surgeries followed, my faculty meetings were replaced with medical appointments, and lots of them! And when I wasn’t having tests or going to appointments, I was waiting… waiting for results, waiting to learn about the next course of action, waiting if to learn if I was healthy enough to endure the treatment, waiting for the doctors to have their round-table discussion about my case, yes, that is what I had become, a case! During this time, I learnt I am not great at waiting and not a particularly patient person, but I am that person who will sit for hours at the medical centre to personally collect the x-ray films so I can literally sprint out of there and rip open the confidential ‘for doctors only’ report, before I even reach my car. The contents are about me after all, and I no longer feel the need to justify my behaviour, or bother with trying to stick the envelop together again so it doesn’t look like it has been tampered with, life is way too short for that! I want, or rather need, to know what the report says, as soon as humanly possible, even if I need to read it with a medical dictionary open on my screen. I also have learnt that medical reports detailing one’s results are interesting documents. As a language enthusiast, I always thought you needed to write emotive phrases or focus on tone or some other literary technique to evoke a response from a reader, but in a funny (as in a strange, not ha-ha) sort of way, I now know that clinical, impersonal and cold hard facts can do just the same, evoking emotions which can either elevate you to the highest of highs or make you plummet to the lowest of lows.
As I struggled to come to terms with my diagnosis, a dear friend, who has experienced her own fair share of hardship, said to me, “We know that the time of diagnoses is the most difficult.” And 15 months later I feel she was partly right. Perhaps the time of diagnoses is the most shocking, the most difficult to process, the most unbelievable, as one grapples with disbelief, the why me? sentiments, all whilst trying to make sense of the unknown, and whilst trying to tap into one’s primal desire to survive and regain some control, for the sake of your loved ones but also for your own selfish motives. And as a herculean battle rages between your thoughts and emotions, your head and your heart, and the polar extremes of rationality, all the stories you have ever heard about cancer come flooding back, swamping your thinking and drowning any common sense that is trying to surface… Who died? Who survived? In which category will I fall? How long do I have?
And right there, in the blink of an eye, one’s mortality is thrust into the lime light, not as a supporting act, but the headliner, up front and centre stage! I guess I kind of understand why the point of diagnoses is so confronting, maybe because deep down we all think we will live forever, or at least to a ripe old age. But a cancer diagnosis does not creep up on you, you basically go from not having cancer in your life to having it consume your every waking moment and to being the culprit responsible for your restless long nights. And no matter how many loved ones you have around you, it is at times a solitary journey. For when sleep eludes you and you are alone with your thoughts, it is then that it is hardest to claw back some hope to stop you going insane with fear, as you try to reconcile your past life with your current reality and a future where you will always be that person who has known cancer intimately, and who will always fear a return visit.
But although the anxiety and fear are very real, I will never forget the words of a remarkable woman who shared her inspiring story in a keynote. She explained that due to an illness, her son went from being a healthy, active teenager in his last year of high school to being confined to a wheelchair, all within the space of a year. In sharing her message of hope, she said, “We will still get there, it is just a different there now.” Maybe this is the type of attitude to life which is fundamental to a person’s resilience, perhaps it is about accepting that there is no use pining for the past or yearning for a ‘normal’ that will forever be out of reach, but rather it is about creating, and being open to, a new and different “normal”, and whatever that may bring with it.
And if you are wondering if I have I mastered this enabling attitude, let’s just say I am a work in a progress. Right now, as I consider my next treatment steps, courtesy of some less than desirable genes, I am trying to figure out what my new and different ‘there’ is, but I know whatever it is, or wherever it is, I will still get there!
