I hope its okay if I post on the fear too and thank you for sharing this as this has been on my mind a LOT lately and I felt strangely relieved just reading your post, knowing I
not alone. Whilst I am still waiting for the diagnosis (being seen urgently next week for a mass that has not been clearly identified by mri and that is growing quickly, my odds are a very rare sarcoma or an even rarer benign tumour) but I am totally gripped with the fear of what ifs and the disease and dying. I am 36 and just gave birth to a long awaited (6 years) ivf baby, and this huge lump appears. And I can’t still believe it’s happening to me. I would be a hypocrite if I said that I am scared of potential diagnosis or dying just because I want my baby to have a mum. No, I am scared of my life ceasing. I want to experience more things and to live longer to see my baby grow up. But it is definitely heightened by the fact that I want my little baby to feel me and feel secure with me. I do not want to die at least until he is in his teenage years as I just can’t imagine the heartache a little one can have otherwise.
I am being told that I have to wait till diagnosis ( I have already been waiting for three months and I guess it will be more weeks till biopsy is done and analysed and I am completely spent!) but I feel the need to plan and work through what ifs. And how I would cope. I think counselling could be immensely helpful if you find a right person. I would try a free service first but I find that you need to really click with your counsellor for it to work. I tried various counselling routes for other reasons before and had a mixture of great and no so great ones. If you don’t get on with a therapist it might be that you need to ask to change them or look at private talking therapy (the latter was the only thing that helped me overcome bereavement when I unexpectedly lost my dad at age of 58). If you look for a private psychologist make sure they are HCPC registered and have expertise in this area.
I think this would be so beneficial in helping to find coping techniques right for you but also tapping into collective wisdom here is so invaluable.
I also remember my dear granma telling me she was scared and did not want to die when she was 80 despite living a long and fulfilled life. So we will all feel the fear no matter the age, but I get the extra cruelty of going through this young. My farther in law just had a near death experience where he collapsed and was dead for 4 minutes before being resuscitated , in his words “it wasn’t that bad”.
I think it is so important to learn to focus on the NOW (like Mowly says (and what a great mantra, thank you!) But I haven’t mastered it!). I will also try finding and cramping as much joy as you can in every day. Who knows, maybe a new pandemic will be here or an alien invasion? :) so this probably should be the main focus of the efforts. Meditation (paid headspace version is amazing), or local cancer charities that offer complementary services/ treatment might also help.
However, i wonder if it might also be helpful to face the fears sometimes (and only sometimes so they don’t take away from the living). I was recommended a book by a colleague who is a palliative research scientist - I think it was by Peter Fenwick, a neuropsychiatrist from Cambridge, and is called The truth in the light. It explores hundreds of near death experiences and from the words of my colleague (I haven’t had balls to read it!) gives glimpse into something science can’t quantify yet. I hope it will be decades before I will need to face dying but it’s good to know that book is there as I think it will be a great source of finding strength and scientific spirituality. Another book that I am contemplating about is staring at the sun by Irvin Yalom, it explores the fear of death and aimed at helping people to live more fulfilled lives. He is a brilliant physiologist and if you don’t want to go to this book yet, I would highly recommend Love’s Executioner by him - a collection of stories from real life patients (two of those stories touch on the fear of death, one being about cancer patient) . It’s a brilliant and compelling read.
I am sending huge hugs and wholeheartedly hope that we don’t have to face any of these for many many many many years ❤️