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Fear is my worst enemy.
I mean that it is the one thing I cannot seem to cope with in a way that doesn’t make me hate myself, that makes me feel like I will never “grow up”. And I was reminded of this yesterday when I had to go to the hospital to get the chemo port flushed out. A once a month ordeal. And it really shouldn’t be an ORDEAL because if I go at the right time (around 7pm) there is a very short wait and the procedure itself only takes about five minutes. But there is so much attached to walking through those hospital doors, so many awful memories of FEAR. And I stupidly let it catch me by surprise because I’d been having such a great week. Lots of positive things were happening, got things resolved with the kitteh situation, and I’d even lost a couple of kilos! Then sometime just before lunch it was like someone turned on the fear tap and I was suddenly inundated with a horrible flood of emotions that seemingly came out of nowhere. Though of course they have been there all along …
Anyhow, I was saved by Flor who picked me up and drove me to the hospital. It was good to have company (Nog was working) and we played iPhone games while we waited for them to call me in. And then it was all over. Except I saw all those people in the chemo chairs getting their treatment, heard the terrible beeping of the drip machines, remembered all the time I’d spent there after my operations and during chemo, and also remembered the night I was there in November while Sunny lay dying at home … fear, sadness, despair, anger, helplessness all washed over me. But by then I’d already gone through the worst of it at home and I realised that I really needed to take better care on hospital days. To spend at least some time, probably starting the day before, acknowledging the FEAR without letting it overwhelm me. I seem to always get taken by surprise because I happen to be feeling good and foolishly think I am safe. But walking into the hospital is a very real reminder that I have a terminal illness and, friends, that scares the hell out of me. Every time.
What’s your worst enemy and how do you deal with it?
Is there anything more demoralising and debilitating than FEAR?
casa azahar 
Was is Roosevelt who said “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”?
Of all the emotions, fear is the nastiest.
It’s the way fear cuts the legs from under one that’s so difficult. I haven’t had to confront your type of fear but I’ve dealt with other types. You’re right. It ain’t nice.
And it’s somehow worse when it sneaks up behind you when you’re not expecting it. It makes us feel impotent and out of control.
We all cope in different ways. Some of us run away and refuse to deal with the situation, others stare it in the face. Some of us learn to cope and others don’t.
Some of our fears are imagined – the what-if scenarios – and some are very real. For the fearful person, they’re all nasty. The adrenaline released during the fight-or-flight reaction to fear has equally nasty side-effects, both short term and longer term; I find it makes me feel sick for days.
Is fear a natural human feeling which is designed to prevent us from putting ourselves in danger? No wonder it goes into overload when the situation can’t be avoided.
I’m glad Flor was with you yesterday and that you got through it. Hope today brings some happiness back.
xxx
ps – on a different note … some serious Andalucia planning due to take place after the w/e š
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Thanks Teuchter. Posts like this tend to scare people away.
I have never really understood the point of that Roosevelt quote. Like, duh? But I think I mostly fear death. Annihilation. As in … NO MORE ME. I don’t know why this should be so scary since, when it happens, I won’t be around to worry about it anymore. And everything I leave behind will be going on somewhere else. But the thought of letting go of all this just terrifies me. After all, it’s all I know.
But mostly I don’t like what fear does to me. It makes me act like someone I not only don’t recognise, but also like someone I really don’t like or want to know. Maybe this is my big life’s challenge … to be Noble in Fear! Meh. You know what? I think I actually am. What I am not is Noble in Worry & Upset. Heh, just writing that made me smile. Because I realised it’s actually true.
When that idiot onc told me last year I maybe had a year to live I didn’t get all crazy and weird. Instead I went to a very deep zen place inside me and let the meaning of what she told me sink in … and then I took Nog and Pablo out for a very expensive meal and got totally shit-faced. But you see, that extreme in yer face fear isn’t what I’m afraid of. THAT I know I will deal with when I have to, if only because I will have to. Which now leaves me wondering what exactly I am afraid of. Because I have already been there, staring DEATH in the eye … and I actually didn’t flinch. Much. Though I know I was also terrified. So then, what am I so afraid of? What could possibly matter after standing up to DEATH and saying, “oh yeah, you and whose army?” And then I realise that they are just stupid things I fear. Just stupid things…
Can I get you to remind me of this next time I have to go to the hospital?
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I have nothing useful to say, but I’m thinking of you, az. You are a strong person.
TRiG.
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I did worry about posting that response, being fearful that I might say the wrong thing. But then I thought, if I do say something asinine or inappropriate, Az’ll tell me, I’ll learn something – and I won’t make the same mistake again š
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Not at all, Teuchter! It was me who hesitated before posting this, but then I thought – hey it’s MY blog – and reckoned that people aren’t under any obliglation to read or respond. So I was very happy that you took the time to write such a thoughtful comment. I really appreciate it.
The other thing about posting stuff like this is that sometimes I get a reply from a total stranger who tells me they are grateful that I put something they’d been feeling into words and “put it out there”. I don’t think for a minute that all the crap I go through because of the cancer is unique, and so if writing about it makes my friends and readers uncomfortable … oh well. I usually follow a “heavy” post with a unicorn chaser, like a quiz or something. This time I had the Photohunt thing to fall back on. But, as I say, this blog is about what goes on in my life. I love it when people comment, and so it is never my intention to make anyone uncomfortable. But I have to write about what’s going on, or else what’s the point?
*waves to TRiG* Heh, you’d have changed your opinion about me being a strong person if you’d seen me yesterday. Luckily nobody did see me, except for Nog (briefly). Times like that it’s best to keep to myself.
Better today though! See … I’m smiling! š
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It seems to me that you aren’t afraid of death . . . but you ARE afraid of the trappings of illness. And rightly so. Fear is theoretically a survival response (along the lines of our monkey ancestors were the ones who ran away or killed the monsters and therefore reproduced, I think). In modern times, its mostly just a problem. I mean, what do you learn from fear?
Back to the trappings of illness: what’s positive about a hospital? Even people going there for ‘good reasons’ (like, having a baby) don’t like hospitals. They are places that automatically mean pain — and pain is something to be avoided. People like you who have spent a lot of time in a hospital get to have the joy of KNOWING just how awful it is. You KNOW you need to be afraid. It’s no longer an intellectual thing.
Maybe it will help to remember that you have done it before and it will be OK? I think your desire to spend a little more time on self-care on hospital days is a good thing. Personally, I think your blogging about it and talking about it will also help. It’s not like you can do anything about it until you just don’t CARE anymore. Then the fear will go away.
It also seems that it was the suddenness of the wave of negativity that came over you that was so horrid to deal with. It’s like the fear snuck up and walloped you — little creature of the nether regions that it is!
For me, when I get into deep fear mode I do 2 things: I look for a reason (I live in the city, sometimes there is a really good reason to be afraid), then I try to see where the fear is ‘living’ in my body. Once I figure that out, I do my best to relax/relieve that physical reaction. Taking a deep, DEEP, breath can do wonders to stop myself from being all tense and shaky. I find that if I can relieve the physical manifestation even a little bit my emotional state calms as well.
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Hi Lisa! Wow, was a great comment. I’ve been a bit all over the place today but would like to come back and reply better maƱana… thanks.
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Hi again Lisa,
I was thinking about what you said and I think it’s kind of the opposite with me. I’m actually more annoyed by the trappings of illness and absolutely terrified of DEATH. Though of course with this particular illness a lot depends on what kind of treatment you are going through. I managed to get through three major ops in seven months without too much difficulty. Compared to chemo, recovering from surgery is a walk in the park. Mostly because you are actually getting a bit better every day, while chemo just makes you sicker and sicker the longer you are on it.
I think that a lot of the fear is about feeling helpless. And a lot of that is tied into my personal history of childhood abuse. So the helplessness I feel because of the cancer gets mixed in with how I felt as a child, having awful things done to me and having no control over them. Which is exactly how I felt when I had to go for chemo treatments. I knew people were going to be doing awful things to me – and wow does that ever set up a whole chain reaction of scary emotions. Even walking into that room now, just for the port cleaning, takes all my nerve.
One curious thing … almost all my life I have suffered from panic attacks, which often made it difficult and sometimes impossible to leave my home. But it seems that getting stage IV cancer actually cured me of them, as if suddenly having something “real” to be terrified of didn’t leave anything left for “imagined” fears. Or maybe it’s just because one can only be so afraid so much of the time before exploding or something.
Anyhow, please stay in touch. I’ll also be visiting your blog. Sometimes it helps to talk with someone who’s “been there”. Even though I don’t know how the chemo for breast cancer feels personally (all the chemo cocktails are different) I can probably relate more than a “normal” person. And I know that sometimes you just have to talk about it.
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