When You've Just Found Out You Have Cancer

 Maybe your heart is pounding.

Maybe your hands are shaking.

Mayby you're crying.

Maybe you're ashamed of all these things, thinking you're supposed to be tougher than that.  Well, if you are, you're tougher than I was.

But if you just found out that you have cancer then I, who have had terminal brain cancer for two years now, (going on three, actually), have two things I need you to know:

1.:  YOU ARE NOT ALONE.

2.  YOU WILL NOT ALWAYS FEEL LIKE THIS.

Oh, wait.  I need you to know more things:

Mainly, that YOU CAN'T IMAGINE HOW MUCH HELP IS WAITING FOR YOU.  Literally WAITING.  Because there are so many people who WANT to help you with your cancer, including oncologists, radiologists, therapists, palliative care workers, social workers, and others, lining the corrodors and leaning out past each other HOPING FOR A CHANCE TO HELP YOU.  It's what they love and need to do.  You are about to find yourself falling into the arms of angelic people, at least for the most part.  Compassion fatigue happens to the best of us, and experiences vary.  But just scratch the surface of your resources and you'll find them pretty plentiful.  Cancer sucks, we all know it, and the cavallry stands ready.  But you have to do your bit:  you have to reach out, and you have to  show up.  It also helps to be nice.  It sucks to have cancer, but nobody in scrubs gave it to you; so  treat them with kindness.  They deserve a lot more respect and gentleness than they get, in general.  Also you will get a much better experience if you are pleasant, patient and appreciative with medical people.  They don't get a whole lot of that.  You may need to stand up for yourself at times as well, and I'll write plenty of posts about that, too.  But generally people will treat you the way you treat them.

And the adjustment will happen.  Right now you feel like you'll never be yourself again, and in a way that's a little bit true.  You will never be the person who never had cancer again, who didn't know what it felt like to have THAT shadow over your shoulder.  That innocence is gone, and it's definitely a loss, and a loss worth grieving.  If you are feeling that sadness, it's no wonder.  And it's perfectly proper to grieve it, in my book. It's well worth a crying session, or several. But you will readjust to the new reality and get your feet back under you.  I can't tell you when.  We're all different.  It took me over six months and vigorous work with a kick-ass therapist doing integration work once a week every week, plus plenty of journaling, mindfulness work on my own, and meeting with an independent mental wellness group I joined with some friends, also once a week.  But I finally reached the point where I no longer had PTSD, not ony from the shock of the diagnosis, but from the trauma of the brain surgery.  I could finally call myself very deeply healed, though I am still healing.  But I am myself now as much as was before diagnosis.  As I did say, it took work.  

I need to recognize my good fortune here.  I've had the time to do this work, to rest and recoup.  Not all cancers allow that.  Mine happened to back off for a time.  But some cancers attack viciously right away and give no quarter, taking the patient down with horriffic cruelty and speed.  If this happens to you, I am deeply sorry and all I can say is, you didn't lose a battle.  Nobody loses a battle against a tsunami or a volcano.  Cancer is Nature.  It's built into the mathmatical model of the universe, the way I see it.  You did nothing to incur it or to "lose" against it.  Cancer is horrible.  You were brave.  You were loved.  Even if the people in your life deserted and betrayed you, you were loved in ways you never knew about and you are still loved.  May you come to know how loved and wonderful you are.

If you have the blessing and grace of time to contemplate life and death, may you have thiese gifts, too.