[2022-02-25] Purpose
A Jenesis reader reached out to me today seeking guidance. She confided that a lingering health issue could be worse than anticipated. She will be going for diagnostic testing because of the possibility of cancer. At only 47, with a 14-year-old son, she admitted to being petrified and anxious, and she wanted to know how to keep herself grounded.
I replied:
I completely understand your feeling petrified, especially with a young son. This is normal. I worried too when I heard the words "you have ovarian cancer." So know that you're not alone.
The next thing to remember is that it's OK to be petrified and anxious and worried. You can sit with those feelings for a few days. You don't have to pretend that you are OK when you're not. I spent three days feeling down when I learned that I have a mutation in my BRCA2 gene that puts me at a 50-80% risk of developing breast cancer. So feel free to give yourself permission to feel bummed out by your current circumstances.
If you want to move past your fear and anxiety, here are some things you could consider. Remember that follow-up tests are as much about ruling out cancer as they are about confirming cancer. Whenever I find myself waiting for bad news, I remind myself not to imagine all the worst possibilities. Try not to worry until a healthcare professional confirms that you have something to worry about. For example, before my surgery to deal with ovarian cancer, the oncologist discussed the possibility of their having to do a bowel resection and a colostomy. That terrified me. Whenever I thought about it, I would brush it out of my mind and tell myself that I would worry about that if it actually happened. It never happened, so I would have been worrying for naught.
To keep yourself grounded, focus on the here and now. Your beautiful son. The quality of healthcare in Canada. Advances in medicine. Your strength to get through whatever life throws at you. The people around you who would support you if you did face a more serious health issue. The many beautiful humans who work in healthcare (especially nurses). The encouragement of people who have faced similar issues before, including cancer.
Find yourself a mantra that you can repeat whenever you are feeling anxious. One that works for me (though not necessarily for you, as you haven't actually been diagnosed with cancer) is "do not die while you are yet alive." A cancer survivor shared that one with me. Yours might be "I can face anything." You could play on this one, for example, "I am a strong woman; I can face anything." Here are some others from a gift someone sent to me: "I am courageous; I am powerful; I am brave." "I am determined; I am focused; I am resilient."
I also like an exchange between Charlie Brown and Snoopy. Charlie Brown says: "Some day, we will all die, Snoopy." And Snoopy replies: "True, but on all the other days, we will not." I often tell myself: "I am here; I am alive; I can make a contribution."
The last thing I would suggest is that you think about how you can help someone else. It could be your son. It could be a colleague. It could be a friend or family member. Helping others gets us out of our head and back into the real world.
Before getting cancer and going through treatment for it, I probably wouldn't have known what to say to this person. Facing a life-threatening illness has made me more understanding of fear and anxiety associated with one's health. When I'm approached as I was today, I try to validate the person's worries before nudging them toward a more optimistic perspective. As I alluded to in my response, it's OK to not be OK. That can be reassuring for people who are feeling down.
Of course, most people don't want to continue feeling down. They're looking for something to help shift their thinking to a more positive plane. Of everything I wrote to this woman, the thing that resonated most with her was the idea that tests are for ruling out cancer as much as for confirming it. That's what she was going to hold onto in the coming days.
In response to yesterday's post, a friend added "What is your purpose in life?" to the list of questions that readers could ask of human books. It's a great question, one to which I will provide a more complete answer in a future post. For today, however, I would say that my purpose is to help people facing cancer, or an illness or another worrisome situation by showing compassion and offering a perspective that might provide comfort and even hope.
Oprah Winfrey said: "The struggle of my life created empathy—I could relate to pain, being abandoned, having people not love me." For me, the struggle of facing cancer created empathy—I can relate to worry, fear and sadness associated with an illness or the threat of disease. Becoming more empathic is the silver lining in the cloud that is cancer.
