Despair.
Desolation
Hopeless
Powerless
Bleak
Without a future
This is how my secondary diagnosis made me feel. I have never felt so low or so bad in all my life. Just getting out of bed and facing the day was a challenge, I didn’t want to see anyone, speak to anyone, do anything, read anything, watch anything….. in truth I just didn’t know what to do, I was totally lost. How do I move on? How do I cope with this diagnosis? It was too big, overwhelming and blinding, it stopped me from thinking and it stopped me from feeling.
I’m not in the pit anymore. I still have incurable cancer, nothing has changed in that respect, but what has changed is my attitude towards it.
I realised that I had the to power to get out of that pit and that meant getting out of that mind set. I was only there because I let myself be. Staying there was awful, I just couldn’t be there. I read a motivational quote: “Worrying does not take away tomorrow’s trouble, it takes away today’s peace”, and it dawned on me that if my life was to be shorter than I had expected then I shouldn’t waste it feeling awful and in that pit! Yes, I had cancer and my prognosis wasn’t good, but at the moment, I’m ok, there is a treatment plan.
I don’t know what tomorrow will bring, but to be honest, neither does anyone, we think we do but non of us really knows what is round the corner, I certainly didn’t see cancer coming! I realised that I was wasting precious time focusing on the bad news and worrying about what was to come, and I was missing the good stuff and what was happening now. When I refocused my lens I was amazed by the number of positive things that were happening in my life. Really, with cancer you have good stuff happening? YES! Don’t get me wrong I didn’t just wake up one morning and bounce out of bed full of positivity, it took time and I had help, help from professionals – nurses, doctors, counsellors, my Rieki practitioner, friends, colleagues, family, reading, nature, even total strangers who passed my way. One by one they reached down into that pit and offered to help me. They couldn’t change my diagnosis but they could help change how I felt. They reached down, but it was up to me to reach up and take that help and it was up to me to heave myself out of there. Without me making that decision all that help would be pointless and I might still be there clinging on and feeling awful. I’m sure that as things progress I might find myself back there again, but I know that I have the strength to get out. I’ts funny but one of the things I have realised is that some people choose to sit in their own little pit and see all the bad stuff in life, you don’t need a cancer diagnosis to do this, you need the mindset. That pit wasn’t cancer, it was me.
Choose hope 