What If I Feel Afraid?
On some level, you knew from the beginning of your treatment that if your cancer was not sensitive to the therapy, you could die from the cancer. You may even have joked about the harshness of your cancer treatments or your losses by saying, “The alternative is worse.”
During treatment you focused on getting through the treatments and dealing with all the short-term practical issues. Now that the immediate risk of death by cancer is past, you may experience your underlying great fears. In an analogous situation a person is involved in a near-fatal car accident, survives because of level-headed defensive driving, and then walks away only to faint from fright after the danger is past. Or someone resuscitates a near-drowned child with calm and expertise and then falls to pieces as the now safe child is taken away.
You did what you had to do during your crisis of cancer. Now that your crisis is over, you acknowledge and experience the fear of your brush with death.
Fear of the unknown is common. Your future is a big unknown. The inability to know your future can cause fear, especially since you glimpsed potential futures when you learned about your cancer and saw other cancer survivors who were not doing well.
Fear can be a recurring emotion after you have been treated for cancer. It can take many forms—fear of recurrence, fear of death, fear of bodily injury or loss, fear of doctors, fear of financial hardship or ruin, and fear of embarrassment. Fear is paralyzing and painful. You must learn to recognize your fear, understand it, and tame it so that your cancer history does not define or control you.
First, figure out what you are afraid of. Is it death, recurrence, future medical problems, rejection or abandonment by family (or friends, or co-workers, or health care workers), or financial problems? Second, share your fears with your family, friends, other cancer survivors, clergy, counselors, or support group.
Get information about the things you fear. Knowledge may
• eliminate fears that were based on misinformation
• allow you to maximize control over things you fear
• teach you a way to live with your fears
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Tags: Cancer
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