Bravery

All through my experience with cancer, and especially with chemo, so many of my friends and family have told me how brave I am. Brave? I certainly don't feel very brave. What's so brave about doing what the doctor tells you to do?

Pre-surgery:
Doctor: We think you have ovarian cancer. Here is the surgery we do for that.
Me: Okay.
Doctor: And have you had any ibuprofen in the past few days? I don't want to wait ten days.
Me: Um, maybe once. Okay.

Post-surgery, about six weeks:
Doctor: Your cancer is stage 1-C. That means it was confined to the ovaries. Here is the standard chemotherapy protocol. We'll start in a week or two.
Me: Okay.

See? No real daring do here. Just following directions. Not blindly, mind you -- I made sure I had a good doctor.

I suppose what my friends and family is really referring to is my attitude. I'm not balled up in a corner crying my eyes out. Well, not most of the time, and not where anyone else can see. I generally like to keep those reactions to myself -- perhaps not healthiest response, but typical of me. I have to admit that over the past few weeks, my fears have been breaking through more and more. I've had trouble sleeping, and my mind keeps getting caught up in thoughts of the worst -- even though all my blood work indicates that I'm doing well. I think some of it is delayed reaction -- I worked hard to compartmentalize my fears early in my recovery, so that I could concentrate on building strength and getting better. Undoubtedly, some of those fears built up and have broken through now. I think I am also nervous about how well my treatment is going. I mean, yeah, there are plenty of unpleasant parts, but overall, the treatments themselves and my body's response have been going really well. I guess I'm afraid of the other shoe dropping. I keep reminding myself that these kinds of fears are natural, but it doesn't always help.

The fact that my third treatment was especially hard on me did not help in the "attitude" factor. It's hard to keep your chin up when you feel like crap. Once I finally started to get over my third treatment, I've been able to get my fears a bit more under control -- or at least less in control of me. I know my fears will never completely go away: that's one of the things I really hate about having cancer. I guess it is a good lesson in learning to live with uncertainty. Or a good way to let uncertainty drive you around the bend. Here's hoping I can keep viewing it as the former and avoid the latter.

Nevertheless, I still don't see how any of this makes me particularly brave. I'm just trying to get through this experience the best I can.