Scary Expectations. Good surprises. Guilt and Strength.

This past week has taken me to the lowest place possible and the highest place experienced in my entire life. When life seems to be dealing you blow after blow, year after year, I think you get into a place where you expect it. Where you don’t expect things actually going right but expect the bad, the nasty and the cruel. Well that is where I have been for more years than I like to think about. So when I receive good news, sometimes it is almost too hard to actually feel good. To accept that something positive has happened. I can’t really believe it. I have lost the ability to believe and to feel relief and ultimately, happy.

If like me, you have been worn down either by poor health, a loved ones illness, bullying and pain; the fear is always there. It had become my constant companion. The ‘what if’s have had a field day and are present most of the time. So ‘good’ is in danger of being lost.

The past few years I have been the punch bag for family, mostly my eldest daughter and youngest sister, long before my Journey with PC had begun, before I began this blog for cancer with a little ‘c’, that had rendered me very low.So I was already in a dark place emotionally. Then came David’s diagnosis that I have written about since last year. I had been unwell, my youngest daughter lost her baby and had been unwell. PC, was I thought, at the time and several times since, the straw that might break the camels back. As I have said on here, cancer doesn’t care what you are going through, it just strikes at will and causes fear and worry. Now I expect it, bad news I mean, the fear is always with me. I don’t expect good news in any part of my life. I thought the family stuff had ended but out of the blue, wallop it is back.

Friday was no exception to the above, going to see the consultant for the results of David’s 6 month PSA result and his future re PC, was scary to say the least. The ‘what ifs’ were overbearing. I could hardly breathe. David was calm and as pragmatic as always. ‘Whatever happens, we can fight it together’, he reassured me on our long journey to the hospital. ‘But I don’t want to fight. I am all out of fight’ I wanted to scream but didn’t. I just smiled. I am good at that, pretending all is well, had lots of practice.

First we saw the incontinence nurse, then the ED nurse and finally the consultant. He talked for a while, asking David questions, going over what he had done during the operation. We knew all of this, were told last visit but I didn’t mind. All the time he was talking about that, he couldn’t give us the bad news. After his assessment of my husband, he calmly said ‘You are cancer free. The PSA is undetectable again’. I sat numb for a while. ‘That’s okay then’, words spoken by my husband seemingly in the distance. ‘That’s okay’? I wanted to scream, it’s not okay! It’s wonderful. Amazing. Thank God’. was what I wanted to shout at the top of my voice but in reality I just sat there, numb. In disbelief. Where was the catch? Where was the bad news? The consultant stood and shook our hands and we left his room. We came out silently and walked through the huge  hospital foyer that suddenly looked amazing. Walking out to the car, it was pouring with rain and blowing a gale. We stopped and looked at each other and smiled. Hugging and laughing in the rain all the way back to the car. It was over.

That evening after telling Marie, my son and close family and friends, then posting on the groups I belong to who have shown such love and support throughout this horrible time, and Facebook friends, I suddenly felt tearful. I wanted to share with my family, share this wonderful piece of news that would change our lives back to happy. I wanted to share my news as I always had done in years past, with my eldest daughter and grandsons, as normal families would. But my family is anything but normal so I couldn’t. The call I dreaded making was to my brother Tony , but he had told me to ring after we had seen the consultant. Tony has terminal lung cancer so it was hard to make this call. He was overjoyed, genuinely happy for us both and that made it feel better. I pm’d my two nieces who are still within my family unit and both said how happy they were for us both. So family is smaller than it should be but the things that have happened, like cancer with a little ‘c’ and the nasties from ‘family’ are in the past now. Today is about the future and I will be happy with those here with me and not let those who try to hurt me rain on my parade.

I heard a young war veteran, Sam Boyle, who is walking around Britain for mental health, PTSD mainly, say on the radio, ‘It’s not the horrors of fear. It’s not about overcoming fear. It’s working through it and with it, every day of your life, that makes you strong.’  I see that now. My childhood and early adulthood had been filled with fear, recently I had fallen back into that, constantly being afraid, expecting the worst but no more. 

I must admit to one downside of this past week. I have worked in the past with survivors of all kinds of horrors, situations, abuse and war, accident or illness, who suffer survivor guilt. I found it hard to write to members of the groups I belong to, who have a terminal prognosis, disease that cannot be cured and telling them of David’s outcome. I feel guilty as anyone would, as I did when I told my brother. But I have also to understand that they want to know about successes, even if they themselves can’t be helped. They are a very unselfish group of men and I love and support them all. I will continue to be a PC bore, telling anyone who will listen, suggest to every man I meet, within reason and where appropriate, to get tested. I will be an advocate for change and awareness at every opportunity. This has been a wake up call and I don’t want anyone else to go on this journey I never wanted to make, if it can be prevented.

So, life was hard enough when this unwanted entity came uninvited into our lives. It caused pain, wreaked havoc and even though it finally left, the damage is done and we have to pick up the pieces. No, I haven’t lost my beloved husband but I could have done. So the ‘F’ word is still around because it came so close. A wake up call. But with this and the prior few years of bombardment from those who should know better, we have lost so much. Most of which we won’t get back, the biggest, being Time. But there is a positive here, we have gained so much. Friends, in reality, friends in virtuality, gratitude and love. So Thankyou cancer and thankyou to those determined to hurt us, Thankyou for teaching me such a lot over the past years.

The ups and downs of the past few days have been tremendous in their strength. The ‘ups’ have been wonderful, enlightening, uplifting. I can see the beauty around me, I can smile again, even laugh. David was singing in the garden this morning, wonderful for me to hear. I can see our future once again and it will be so good.

The other ‘stuff’ will not keep spreading its’ poisonous decay, I won’t let it. Tell the lies, the made up stories and the gossip, I don’t care. Nothing you can throw at me will come close to the horror of the closeness of losing my husband, the man who helps hold me together through everything. My rock. I am as strong as him now. You’ll not beat me down again.

I don’t know whether this is how you feel when you are ‘high’. Ecstatic, euphoric, deliriously happy. I don’t know. When the drug of your choice wears off and you begin to come down, feel low and descend into a huge black hole as I began to do yesterday. I don’t know. I have been tearful with relief but if I ever, for any reason, go down again, I will read my own blog and remind myself of this Journey. I was at rock bottom before it all began and then discovered that rock bottom had a basement and I was pushed down it, and was even lower than the previous 3 years. Now I am out!

On this stage we call life, the villains come in all shapes and sizes. People, disease, perpetrators of abuse. They don’t come one at a time or on their own, they sometimes come in gangs unwarranted, evil and destructive. Well we have killed off the biggest of these villains to attack and infest us; cancer with a little ‘c’. The villains left, still inflicting the poison are insignificant now, and the show will go on regardless. A few nasty characters are still on the stage, still trying to ruin the happy ending but they will fail. Truth and good will always prevail.

My love and thoughts are with anyone fighting cancer, everyone in the groups I am part of and I will continue to blog. It may be,more personal and I will tell you before you read, in case it doesn’t interest you. I wish you all the luck and love in the world and thank everyone for the love and support you have shown me on this Journey , that is written from my perspective not David’s.  Never stop hoping. x

The past years have seen us both fight the biggest battle of our lives. David having cancer. Before that, we both fought for my professional and writing career and we won both. 100% record I think.

So Life and the ‘nasties’,do your best. Throw anything you have at us and we will fight you off and win. These past years have made us stronger than ever, made me stronger than ever. After the worst few years of my adult life, to quote Sir Elton John, ‘I’m still standing’.

Thankyou for reading x