After my cancer diagnosis, my anxiety disappeared. Now I'll do anything to keep this body
|
Version 0 of 1. I’m grieving for a loved one lost. The only one who really understands me. The person I know best in the world. This is what I felt when they told me I had cancer. A rare form in my liver that has spread from an unknown source. Inoperable. Incurable. I’m 29 and I should be planning for my Big Three-O party at the beginning of February. I should be filled with both trepidation and excitement about the opportunities a new decade could bring. Instead I’m in and out of hospital, starting chemotherapy treatments, filing applications for disability payments. Organising an impromptu wedding because I don’t know how much time I’ve got left – or of that, how much will be quality time. I have suffered from anxiety for years, a symptom of a perfectionist and slightly obsessive mind that could never believe I’d done enough or done it well enough. Haven’t achieved much with my career. Fixated on a friend’s slow reply on Facebook and wondering if it means they don’t like me. Self-conscious because I’ve never quite managed to get rid of the acne that’s plagued me since my teens. Dissatisfied because I couldn’t get my tummy as toned as I thought it should be. Now, I’ll do anything to keep this body. I’ll take the flab on the thighs and the acne on the neck and the grey hairs that keep popping up and the obsessive personality that means I have to check a locked door five times before I’m convinced. The thing is the anxiety has disappeared. Overnight all that worry became irrelevant. In its place have come other emotions. First: the grief. Uncontrollable and hysterical crying that would erupt in a second and be gone as quickly as it arrived. Next: anger. Sitting in hospital waiting rooms with greyed and wrinkled pensioners; the only young person there. Resenting them for being allowed to get old before having to face their mortality. Resenting even more the people out on the street who are tempting fate and still winning: smokers outside buildings; the hoon who cut us off on the highway; the binge drinkers we walked past on Saturday night who deserve to get liver problems and don’t. Then despair. Why me? Why can’t I read about someone else going through this, before clicking on another web link about this season’s best beauty buys, while simultaneously pondering what I’ll make for dinner? I saw a jacket I liked in a favourite store the other day but walked out again because I couldn’t see the point in buying it. I don’t really know what to do about Christmas because in the back of my mind I’m wondering if I should be buying farewell gifts. Now I’ve reached a calm of sorts. Most of the day I feel fine. But a trigger can bring it all back. A photo. A shop or sign or advertisement that reminds me of something I’ve done or planned. Wondering if this is the last time I’ll do this or that or if I’ll ever get the chance. I don’t deserve what is happening to me. I’ve always eaten the right foods, never smoked or taken drugs, stopped drinking a long time ago. I don’t have any obvious genetic factors. I’ve always gone to the gym and took up long-distance running about three years ago. I can’t even remember the last time I had a cold. It would almost be easier if I had felt sick in the lead-up to my diagnosis. If my body had given me a warning that something was up. My symptoms were so mild that I felt a bit of a hypochondriac even going to the doctor in the first place. I thought I had a bit of indigestion, maybe even a minor food intolerance. The doctors tell me there is nothing I could have done differently. It doesn’t really make me feel any better. The chances are so extreme and I’m the lucky one who was chosen. I don’t have any choice about this happening to me. But I do have a choice in how I respond. And that’s where you come in. Go and have a blood test. Even if you feel on top of the world. Even if you know nothing is wrong. Do it regularly; at least yearly. Perhaps more importantly: stop being afraid to live your life. Quit your job and follow your dream. Ask that person on a date. Is being rejected really worse than never trying? Book a sky dive or dye your hair pink. Stop worrying about whether you have the right clothes or car or house. Put away the credit card and spend Christmas with your loved ones instead of at the mall. Go for a walk and look at the sky. I have lived a full life and I’m still clinging to hope that there will be more time to come. I could have done a few things differently but overall, not many regrets. A few weeks ago, I was you. I thought I had all the time in the world. You probably still do. So what are you going to do about it? |