I'll tell you what, um, well... um... how can I put this..
As strange as it may seem, I believe that the way in which we learn about our cancer partly influences the way we view it and therefore how we fight it. In my experience and given my personality, it is better to receive the news gradually or indirectly, with clear explanations and health professionals who take the time to answer all your questions. This allows you to better understand the disease, to have a clearer view of your medical condition and to better organize yourself for what comes next.
A sudden and unexpected announcement can knock you for six, as another older patient told me. He had got the bad news in August from his doctor's substitute (on holiday), who was supposed to give him the results of some tests that had a completely different purpose.
- “Hello, well there you go, dear sir, you have cancer...”
One could always argue that it has the merit of being clear, but learning it so abruptly, from the mouth of a person he didn't even know, when he had come for something completely different, was like receiving an uppercut. He was left groggy for several days, had difficulty telling his wife, and it took them a while to come to terms with the news and be able to face it. Fortunately, although mine was also discovered when we weren't looking for it, I was much more fortunate.
Perhaps that´s also why I´m not at all in the mindset that I´ve often seen sufferers adopt: that of the fighter who is going to “face the crab, that damn crab”. I don't see mine as an enemy but rather as a somewhat deviant creation of my body, an internal experience that has gone off the rails and must be brought to an end. I respect any other way of seeing it; it is a personal, intimate matter that is specific to each individual, their character, the circumstances and the extent of the disease.
Let's dig a little
Each case is relatively unique and experienced in an intimate and personal way. Because, yes, it's not the same thing when you are told that you have a cancer:
a) that will kill you
b) which may have killed you if one didn't...
c) which we will be able to control
d) that we are going to remove
Not the same when you are announced a treatment over 6 months, over 2 years or ad vitam eternam.
It's not quite the same when you are forced to spend a month isolated in a sterile room in hospital, because cancer has broken down your defenses, and when you can experience it at home 95% of the time.
It's not at all the same for a woman whose hair is falling out and a guy who, like me, is lucky enough to have kept his hair almost completely.
Still not the same when the illness forces you to lug an oxygen tank around with you 24 hours a day, or prevents you from sleeping because the pain is so intense, or even requires surgery, and when it does not disable you at all or almost at all.
It's not the same thing, after all, if you're alone or, instead, accompanied.
And there is the age lottery, the good or bad physical condition lottery, the hospital lottery.
Maybe now you have a better idea of the number of possible combinations. And then, when there is hope, comes the will to hang on and the reasons why we want to do so.
