What I want to be clear about here is that I didn’t ‘fail’ at keeping cancer away. My first thoughts with this new experience were of that ilk. I believe the trauma of the first experience I had with cancer made me feel ashamed that I got it again. Actually, I was ashamed that I got it at all. Everyone will say ‘but it’s not your fault’ and I would say that to anyone in the world but myself. So that is the source of where I begin. How DO I talk to myself?
Read MoreI was on the way to work a night shift when I learned I had ‘a cancer’ in my breast. I really thought it was the hospital calling to tell me I had to float to another unit or that we were overstaffed or something, but it turned out to be the results of a recent biopsy I’d had. Of course, having the biopsy alerted me to the possibility of such a situation but I had tucked it away as something I’d ‘hoped was wrong.’ But ‘I knew all along.’
I worked my shift that night with that new knowledge, and I couldn’t even speak of it because I would have fallen apart. I took care of my patients that night extra carefully and in the downtime googled reasons why I might have given this to myself. I had a hard night. I couldn’t call anyone. It may have been the longest night of my entire life.
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