I knew I was fine. However, I am not naive enough to think that this thing cannot return in a heartbeat. As mentioned in previous posts, I feel better and more positive now than I ever did before.
What was unusual about yesterday was that I can honestly say that I felt absolutely no anxiety whatsoever when going into the hospital for the results. At the risk of sounding like the IceMan (or an equivalent unfeeling entity), I was totally calm. The doctor actually said to me that he had seen a half dozen patients before me that morning already, all of whom were in various states of anxiety or nervousness, even those who had been free of cancer for 7 or 8 years....and I was the most relaxed person he'd seen all week. I remember the way I sat - almost perched into a relaxed but attentive position. I think this reflect my new ability to take things as they come, try to focus on the now. Of course I had thought about a negative outcome, but had rationalised it and broken it down, seeing clearly what that would look like and how I would cope. This, it seems, is the value of my experience. What will be will be. I must say this was a strange position to be in but left me feeling confident and strong, rather than cold.
I drove home at a very slow pace, thinking about what had just happened, playing it over in my mind and out loud. This felt like a lonely conversation. But of course everybody's experience is different, everybody's fears are different and everybody's vision of their future is different. So in many ways, this was a unique experience.
Then I went back to work. Within an hour I was back doing the mundane, ordinary tasks of the day. And later I made dinner and read stories to my children before going to bed.
But that's o.k. Aren't they the things I got better for? They are the things I choose to do...because I can.
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