Radical Optimism

A strange sort of limbo hangs over the house in the day as I wait anxiously for treatment to start. I finished wrapping up my minor corrections on the PhD thesis today and weirdly enjoyed my last hours spent with this beast I have given birth to over the past five years. It’s a strange process taking on something so long (ok it didn’t have to take quite that long but I was busy doing other things). You live with it, you wake up thinking about it, you ignore it, you love it, you scream at it. Bit like family. I enjoyed completing the changes and hitting send to my examiner. It felt like pushing a little boat I’d made out to sea and waving it goodbye.

The space that finishing something that has loomed SO large leaves is…exciting. I know I have a couple of other things to do in the coming months (like hang around hospitals) but I am wondering how I can reframe this gift of time. Now the initial shock and horror of the diagnosis has dulled, now that I have got used to the idea that I may have less time, I get up each morning with a mix of a cheery up- yours, ‘still here!’ sort of attitude and a micro-monitoring of how I’m feeling. It’s inevitable. This watching yourself for worsening symptoms. I think it might be possible to get used to it. To find positivity and optimism. Out of my arsenal of weapons and techniques learnt over 51 years what have I really got and what can I actually control? Just that. Diet, stress, exercise yes. Patient advocacy and assertiveness yes. But radical optimism in the face of this? Why the fuck not?

How many things in life redefine us in a moment? Cause our world to spin on its axis? I’ve had a few of these and I feel my resilience toughen each time. I am experienced at this. But I went, once more, from being a regular mum, turning up to do a job, moaning about all the usual things, staying on top of managing three kids, ageing parents, shopping, cleaning, earning money, occasionally doing something for myself…to being someone with non curable cancer…in a day! (And still managing three kids, shopping, life etc etc). It’s all consuming but I don’t wish to become a professional cancer patient. My mother ran a secondary breast cancer forum after her cancer returned. She survived cancer for over thirty years and I am very proud of her, the work she did and the people she helped, but I want my life to be about more than cancer.

I’m trying to generate some positive practice out of this moment. Not just to appreciate and feel grateful but to let the small things I notice across the day stay with me and give me cause for hope. And right now my days are small days. I love being around small children. Seeing them try out daring things in the park. Looking at the world with open wonder. I like seeing the sunshine and the blossom trees about to come into flower. Watching the birds on the river. Seeing people doing simple things and enjoying life. Today every bench was taken up outside the library with people reading and sitting in the sunshine. Not on their phones. And as I walked home tonight there was a colourful penumbra round the moon. Like a double, circular rainbow. It stopped me in my tracks. These moments arrive like baubles and I try to string them together across the day to make a rope of light to guide my way home. An anchor. They say hope floats but it is often elusive. Like trying to catch a ray of light or a dandelion seed as it floats away. And some days I leap to catch it and fall on my face.

Now it’s not like I’m skipping about like a spring lamb constantly in raptures about raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens. I totally lost it in the hospital on Monday visiting my 97 year old father in law with Alzheimers. (And not for the right reasons). Some situations I need to stay away from. Finding hope in the small things helps a bit when you are trying to generate it out of nowhere. Just to be quiet and observe. I have a long line of well wishers offering walks and coffees and I appreciate all of them but right now it feels like a time to be quiet, to go into myself and just keep moving. So forgive me if I don’t feel like packing my diary. My energy is limited. I have my theory of the precious fiver guiding me. Kids and family deserve at least £2.50. The rest must be spent wisely. Count it out like a miser. Anyone and anything stressful sends me into deficit and I literally can’t afford it.

Can radical optimism and quiet progress save me? We’ll see. Tomorrow is another step. One foot in front of each other. One (slightly laboured) breath at a time. Still here.