The naked truth

 The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

So today people are showing their support for breast cancer by posting photos of themselves free from make up, naked and exposed, very appropriate as its exactly what being diagnosed with this disease feels like. On the positive side of that though, there is a certain liberation in such exposure. My breast cancer has made me look at who I am and I have faced up to a lifetime of insecurities and fears. Fear is what keeps us from happiness, it stunts us and blocks our emotional well being and balance. A good friend of mine quoted a wonderful AA saying FEAR can stand for Fuck Everything And Run or it can mean Face Everything And Recover. I am happy to report that I'm trying very hard to live in the second camp. In a strange way being diagnosed with secondary cancer allows you to do this. Maybe it's because you've already faced the thing that was always the biggest one. I read recently that the most feared word in the English language is cancer, not death but cancer. Not that surprising really. So perhaps when this has been faced down the rest becomes small stuff. This amongst other things has opened up the door for me to face up to the multitude of other fears that we all live with on a daily basis and this has changed my life and enriched the lives of those around me. It was facing fear that got me to the Jubilee hospital yesterday without concern. I was seeing the thoracic surgeon about my future in terms of surgery. I didn't have a sleepless night on Monday and I didn't let my mind race or project I simply went to my meeting with an open mind. This meant being prepared for him to tell me that he couldn't operate, that my condition was hopeless in this respect. He didn't. He was an amazingly open and straight talking doctor and I instantly liked him, and felt very comfortable with the thought of his hand at some point poking around in my lung! The upshot of the meeting is that he is willing to perform surgery to remove my tumours at some point but at the moment he feels that my disease is so "low level" that he would rather wait until further down the line. As I am only 14 months away from my surgery to eradicate my primary tumour it would be naïve to conclude that there is no disease elsewhere on the lung, it is too early for that. However that also doesn't mean that there is. So I am going to continue with my current chemo and keep being scanned regularly. I will meet with him again and we will review the situation. It's good, it gives me hope and we all know what happens when we don't have hope. It was also uplifting to be sat with a doctor telling me that my disease was low level, those were definitely words I liked hearing. I couldn't help but think that should my LDN work then the whole thing may only ever be theoretical. Let's hope so. All I do know for sure is that I continue to be optimistic, positive and most importantly I am happy today to face my fears, god knows I've had lots of practice