This is another thing that I had not foreseen with cancer: needing to update people with news that I am very much still alive. Completely. Yes! There’s no cause for alarm! Even if I am not writing emails (or blog posts) every day anymore. The truth is that I’ve never managed to keep a personal diary for longer than 6 days either. So in a way it’s as if I have already ‘died’, by 7th January, each year, for decades. How reassuring!
But if I do happen to die, then I absolutely intend to be the first person to know - not the last. I wouldn’t want to miss that event for anything. It would be such a huge disappointment for me, I might never recover.
Hospital staff have, so far, informed me: “You should have a normal life expectancy.” ‘Should’ is not as good as ‘will’ but it’s (not quite) as bad as ‘might’. Though there isn’t really enough difference between ‘should’ and ‘might’ when it comes to dying, is there?
I can tell that staff must have had to say this exact sentence a lot of times to a lot of people. They have mastered sharing the right facial expression, tone of voice and body language. They are so kind and calm but firm. There is no spiteful question mark at the end of their words, no stern finger-pointing, no dismissive shoulder-shrugging. But there is uncertainty, especially if you risk asking twice. It seems “there can be no promises” - not in this word of illness. (Oh, John Lewis, I love you, with your lifetime guarantees, more than ever.)
How long is a life? How long is a piece of string? That’s how the story goes. At any given moment, both a life and a piece of string can be cut short. But I am not remotely interested in string. Still, a life and a piece of string are likely to be more useful when they are the right length for purpose: neither too short nor too long. Okay, that’s a reasonably positive thought: I am going to hold on to it.
