Saturday 5 November 2011

IT'S CRYING TIME AGAIN

It's scan time again. How rapidly they come around !  I had mine yesterday and what a gruelling time it is.  I felt like I was on my way to my execution yesterday morning. But on reflection it's not so much an execution as a trial. And now I'm waiting for the jurie's verdict.  Melodramatic it may sound. But it's very serious to me. It's akin to being on death row ( not that I have first hand experience of living on an American death row ) and waiting to hear how your appeal has gone. Has the governor pardoned me for another few months ?!!? It is melodramatic. It's the stuff of stories. But when you're living with the Sword of Damocles hanging over your belly I can assure you that at scan time it's not drama, it is deathly serious. Has the cancer awakened ? Have I roused it ?  Because I can't feel it,  and once I do I know it'll  be at a very advanced stage. Other organs will be involved. Vital organs. And I'm oblivious until I either have serious problems or a Very expensive, Very large, Very technological machine tells me so.

Everyone in the house is affected by it. I'm stressed. They're stressed. It comes out in different ways. But it does come out. I'm emotional. I'm terrified. I can't think straight. I have no working memory to speak of. Each time it feels worse than ever. Is that right , or is it just that, like childbirth, I forget how bad it was before ? The answer's not important because if you live in the present moment it's as bad as it gets in that instant. And today it's fairly bad.  I am very lucky to have survived to this point. And I'm grateful. Very grateful.  Unfortunately, defining survival at this stage is about looking back. I've survived so long. That's in the bag. That's safe. But the future is uncertain. There are no guarantees. I ask if there are others like myself who are living with metastases. I sometimes get the affirmative. Sometimes I don't. One thing's for sure, there aren't so many out there that are making themselves known. That frightens me for some reason. Yes, there are some. But I am always told that all cancer's are different. I know this. But it's used as an apology for there being so comparatively  few surviving with it.  And I gather that there's very little research money going into finding anything to help those with metastatic disease. How comforting. Even more reason to get irritated with all those adds appealing to you to give money to cancer research to "save lives ".  It's the metastatic stuff that kills you ! It's such an industry ! Going around Universities with my daughter I was struck by how many have cancer studies departments. This is a HUGE industry worth mega bucks, and not just in England, Britain, or North America, but worldwide. There's not going to be a cure anytime, anytime. Can you imagine what it would do to global economies if overnight so many people were made redundant and so many drugs were not sold, so many supplements, teas and potions were unnecessary, so many carers not needed , so many doctors and specialists no longer required. All that knowledge and experience obsolete.  It would be devastating economically. It's just not going to happen.  Clearly there's a very powerful disincentive to finding a cure for cancer ! God help us !!!!!

Anyway, just wanted to post about the fear - so that next time  ( if  I'm lucky enough to merely need another scan in a few months !! ) I'll remember that I'm terrified, petrified, paralysed, just not functioning - at all - like a rabbit in headlights. There aren't words for the gut wrenching distress that I feel at the prospect of my cancer awakening and the ordeal I will have to go through.  All my meditation and mindfulness induced calm desert me. Or perhaps I'd really be in a twitching, gibbering, drooling, trembling and shaking state without them. 

Fingers crossed for the result !!

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