The Fear

You know what's the worst thing about cancer?  Apart from the cutting up of the body and the rays and the drugs and the tests and the aftermath and the permanent physical changes?  It's the fear.

It's the fear of the unknown that keeps you up crying in your bed at 4am.

It's the fear when you're due to take a test the next day and you don't know how much it's going to hurt or what you'll have to do or how embarassing it will be.

It's the fear of going into hospital and knowing that your body will be changed for ever and will never be the same.

It's the fear of the test results, even a simple test.

It's the fear of showing your new body to the world and the fear of being judged for it.

It's the fear that people will know you're ill or notice the change in your body but not have the words to talk to you about it and then talk behind your back about you.

It's the fear of starting a long intense treatment and not knowing how it's going to affect you.

It's the fear of worse news to come.

It's the fear that your children won't have a Mum anymore.

It's the fear of a long battle that you just don't feel up to.

It's the fear that you will always be looking over your shoulder.

It's the fear that you will never forget.

It's the fear that it'll come back and all you've been through will be for nothing because it will be back in a different place and you won't know about it unti it's too late.

It's the fear of never really feeling back 'in' the world again, feeling disassociated, distant, not really there, not part of it all, being a spectator or an observer and the fear that you'll never  really feel like you're 'there' again.

It's the fear of seeing those people 'worse off than yourself' and instead of feeling grateful that yours is just a 'little manegeable cancer' that one day you will be treading the same path as them.

It's the fear that despite all the efforts of the doctors, there are cells that are right this minute multiplying inside you bringing you bad things.

It's not the death that's frightening, it's the slow downward steps towards it.  Death by cancer is not pretty - I've seen it before, many many people have seen it before.

It's like you're standing at the top of cold stone stairs leading down to a black, cold fast runnning river.  Normally you'd just be walking by those steps looking down thinking 'oh that looks dangerous and slippy, take care and you warn your children away from them.  But then cancer takes you to the top of the stairs and forces you down the first one and sometimes you go down one or two stairs and you spend some time on each one sitting, watching the black water that's just a little bit nearer.  Then little by little you have to go down the stairs and your feet get wet, then your legs, your body, your shoulders when finally your head is under and you're swept away.  And all the time you know what's happening and you don't want it to happen but you're forced to participate and to descend even though every part of your brain tells you that you don't want to be there.  And even if you're cyring and screaming and kicking, you have to go down.

Sometimes people are lucky enough to be able to go back up a step, maybe two or three, but they will always be somewhere on the staircase, where normal people don't have to go, looking at the water.

Sometimes it's just easier to dive straight into the water.