I’ve never been good at being ill. I don’t like the sense of helplessness or feeling like a burden on others. I don’t like lying around in bed feeling rubbish and not being able to go outside. I get bored easily and am prone to grumpiness. When I first got my diagnosis, the idea of being incapacitated was the scariest bit. The thought that I would take my seemingly perfectly healthy and well body and cut it open, fill it with toxic drugs and then radiate it, anathema. Repelled by the idea that I somehow needed to fight the cancer, I had this overwhelming feeling that I truly needed to nurture myself.

Kind friends recommended and sent me books. In order to combat the anxiety, I armed myself with knowledge. I became interested in not only the mechanics of what would happen to me but the whys and wherefores of why it had happened in the first place. My anger soon faded – I went from ‘Why me?’ to ‘Why not me?’ and worked from there. I explored my feelings and listened to what I needed and began to notice common themes emerging. Gabor Mate links chronic illness to people who have found it difficult to put their needs first and an inability to say no. Traditional Chinese Medicine links breast cancer to feelings of unexpressed anger in the liver and my acupuncturist confirmed that my body told this story.

About a week after my diagnosis, my Dad died, we hadn’t seen each other for 6 years. Since my Mum died in January, I had been drawn back to my Buddhist practice and had been meditating regularly at home. In the days leading up to this death I found myself focusing on my Dad during my loving kindness meditation, and to my surprise felt able to wish him well. This felt like quite a shift for me and I had a sudden urge to reach out to him, so I wrote him a letter. Little did I know that he was already in the hospice, and the letter would never reach him. The timing of his death felt significant however and a friend remarked that he had made space for me. I knew what she meant. It was finally over and I could let him go.

I’m not sure whether any of this will make any difference to the course of my cancer treatment and recovery, but the past few weeks have felt truly transformational. An old friend reached out and offered me the chance of some work around my childhood trauma, and then passed me on to her therapist friend who helped me to prepare for my operation. I had already thought about my diet, and made some changes. Another wonderful friend made me medicinal mushroom powders and yet another recommended a herbalist.

I’m no longer anxious and scared about not waking up from surgery, but rather have learnt to see this as a second chance, a new beginning. I’ve been trying to make changes in my life for years, but they never seem to stick. We all know we should drink less, exercise more, eat healthily and find time for relaxation, but life always seemed too busy to fit all of this in. My diagnosis gave me the gift of time for myself, and I am slowly learning that I need to formulate healthy boundaries and that it’s okay to put myself first at times. The ability to be vulnerable and cede control to others has never been a strong point of mine, but given that I have no choice, this has to form part of my learning.

As another wonderful friend put it: other animals run away from the storm, but buffalos run towards it so that they can get through it more quickly. Black clouds are gathering on the horizon, watch me now as I run into that storm….