I'm not a stranger to this disease. I lost my dad at 14 to pancreatic cancer and remember how he insisted on keeping it a secret - from friends, family, colleagues - until he started losing his thick, dark hair to the chemo and it became apparent something was wrong. My mum, his sole carer and sole bearer of this terrible secret, endured months in long-suffering silence.
Exactly 14 years later, having to break the news to my mum simply broke my heart. Even at the initial stages of being diagnosed, I couldn't bring myself to tell her - I couldn't bear to do that to her again. But she took the news calmly, and looking back, I really should have given her more credit - this was the same tough-as-nails woman who rarely cried, and single-handedly raised me. I would be proud even to be half as brave as her, to be even have a fraction of her incredible strength and tenacity.
Telling work wasn't great either. People that I barely knew, but had a responsibility towards and needed to know that I might be off for months on end to receive treatment. Responses ranged from blank looks ("Sorry, what's lymphoma?") and naivety ("Oh, I'm sure it's something they can just zap off, you'll be fine!") to sorry attempts at appearing concerned ("I'm sure treatment will be effective. Stay positive.").
Then there was letting friends know. One thing I didn't expect but found myself repeatedly doing was trying to assure them I was going to be okay. "But it's very treatable," I heard myself saying. "And the consultant thinks we've caught it early," I would blurt out uncontrollably. Only thing being, I don't know if either of these things are true - am I saying them to convince myself? Or was I just trying to make them feel better?
