I know nothing. My life is now that of probability. Possibility.
In the four weeks since my cancer diagnosis I have gone through denial, acceptance, anger, hope and ultimately resignation. I do not mean that I have given up, I have not. I have accepted that I am on the rollercoaster and I will need to hold on tightly.
My personal rollercoaster has no route, no map and no end in sight. I must put my faith in the system and except that my doctors are going to do all they can to treat me. I have never been religious; faith in anything has never come easy to me, but here I am listening to every word and looking for meaning where perhaps none exists.
The phrase, “no two patients are the same, all cancers behave differently in different people” has echoed through my treatment so far. It has enabled me to think I may be the exception, I might get better, I might live until a cure is found. I grip this idea so tightly, it makes me ache.
I am forty-seven years old, a mother and a wife. I have a career as a teacher and have spent the last 24 years educating students to fight for their place in the world. I have never smoked, I rarely drank and until four weeks ago, the only time I have been in hospital was for the birth of my son 20 years ago. Here was my anger, why me who knew about the risks of smoking and drinking? Why me who had no symptoms of illness?
The beginning of this journey was an innocent visit to the GP on a warm summer afternoon. I had warned my husband that going to the GP with rib pain would result in an ECG and to be on standby to keep me company during the wait at the hospital. The rib pain had hung around for longer than a pulled muscle and I knew I should get it checked, nothing could have prepared me for the next 24 hours.
The hospital let me sleep in my clothes that night. I get the feeling the ward staff knew before I did or perhaps they just read the signs. I slept soundly, as I have every night since, I know the value of sleep, the body heals during sleep. The following bright and sunny morning, I was a cancer patient.
