When the first doctor tells you it's bad news, and when a friend says on the phone he has another friend dealing with glioblastoma and you say, "Yeah?" hopefully and he then bursts into tears, that's not a lot of hope given.
Which is when you have to manufacture it yourself.
After the call from Dr. Chow urging me to stay positive and hopeful, I started puzzling it out.
Nobody likes to be left hanging after a bait-and-switch, like when you put out your hand for a low five and then yank your hand away before the other person can slap it. That's what false hope is like. You feel not only crushed, but humiliated. So I'm not a big one for Pollyannaisms. They annoy me, actually, because most of the time when other people try to jolly you up it's with glib platitudes that sound condescending and insensitive.
I took Dr Chow's advice to heart, when he urged me to stay positive and be hopeful. I just wasn't sure how to enact it.
Then I talked to my friend Erinne on the phone, saying at one point, "I'm not sure how to be hopeful like that."
She launched into a beautiful diatribe about watching me strive after all the things I've tried to do and even when I failed I just kept going with the next thing, my "dogged" pursuit of all my dreams, and reminded me, "That! That's what that is, is hope!"
The sky seemed to open up. It was a true ruby slippers moment, a moment when a glimmering Good Witch points to your shoes and enlightens you that the power is already yours. Certain friends are truly sparkling fairies sent to save your ass when you're lost in a strange new land of wonder and danger.
My cousin Dean, who I hadn't seen since I was a kid, messaged me on Facebook to regale me with the fact that he, too, is a cancer survivor, and that as a part of the Perry Clan I have all I need to get through this. I could hear bagpipes soaring over the heather.
OK, so. that's the kind of hope I need.
Got it.
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