Fear

It is funny how a little emotion can come to dominate what you do. In February of this year I was once again diagnosed with colon cancer. Though this time the cancer choose to take up residence in my liver and near a kidney (I know, why is it colon cancer if it is in the liver? Simply because all cancers are named, and treated, after the area of the body in which they originate.) Since then I have had run ins with several different aspects of fear.

The first bout with fear was when the doctor told me that the chemotherapy may not work quickly enough and it appeared that I had only six weeks to live. The end of one's life is an occasion for fear and I was no exception. The fear that really got me though was not for my existence. I knew then, as I know now, that I have lived my life in a way that honors what I value and my God. Knowing that, I was able to look at the ending of my earthly existence with a contentedness that made the personal fear less. No, the fear that really got me was the fear for my wife, my family and my friends. I knew that they would be most powerfully impacted by my absence. I even had a conversation with Suzi (my wife) where we discussed my feelings about her potentially remarrying. That was scary, knowing that I would be absent from the events of this life. I would miss my 10th anniversary, my 32nd birthday, Suzi's 30th, my niece's first day of school; it was the relationships that would be postponed that gave me pause and lead to a deep and powerful fear. The desire to wrap myself in the presence of those I love and care for has now taken on a new and more urgent sense. But that nagging fear that I may not be around for the special and mundane moments of life continues to gnaw at me despite any improvements I may make.

The second fear that occupies my thoughts is that the remainder of my life will be spent on chemo and with the accompanying pains, illness and misery that goes along with a harsh dose of these drugs. I have discovered that nothing is worse then waking up in the morning to find that your body is in rebellion against you. The fatigue and weakness take their toll on my view of myself as a man. Now I am the one forced to ask for help with the pickle jar and ask my wife to lend me her strength to accomplish tasks around the house. Being unable to physically do the mundane chores of the house because of weakness takes it toll psychologically as I begin to see myself as a victim. At 31 I am often reduced to asking for help in matters that any healthy 30-something could and would do without pausing to consider the effort versus the reward. This fear is hard to discuss because of the weakness it shows in me and in my present state and fails to even consider the feelings of being ill that are the staple of life on chemo.

The second fear feeds the third fear and gives it strength. Being young it is difficult to admit to weakness because there is a fear that it will be seen as a reason to dismiss you before your time. As I wrote the above paragraph I was fighting my fear that those in my church may read it and decide I am a liability and fire me, or my friends and family may see me as a waste of time and energy and abandon me. The fear that I will be tossed aside is real and perhaps the worst of the fears. This fear is not forgotten on good days, or when friends and family visit, no this fear always lingers in the back of the mind eating away at my resolve. Did I do enough today to earn my place? Have I offered enough to justify my continued employment? Doubts like this rest heavy on me. The frustrating thing is that this fear causes me to doubt friends, family, coworkers and those whom I consider my spiritual family, my church. Yet none of these groups or individuals have given me any cause to have this feeling or fear but it still nags at me. Every time I am too ill to get out of bed I wonder if today is the last day someone will put up with me. Each day I am below what I know to be par I fear that someone will cut me out of something in my life that helps to still give it meaning. Fear of being cut out of the things that give me a sense of accomplishment and value battles me everyday for control over my attitudes and actions. Do I need to overdue and push myself beyond what I know I can do to prove my worth or do I do just what I can and show my weakness. Fear wins too often, and this fear can only make me worse but the sad truth is this fear is so strong and wins so often that any mere moment I can beat it through pushing myself past it and only do what is good and healthy is, to me, a victory. A hollow seeming victory, but victory none-the-less.

Well those are the fears that I struggle with on a daily basis. In truth I hope no one reads this, but if you do please remember that I am only a man and have the weaknesses common to man and that I wrote this in part to simply allow myself to give vent to those things which work to dominate me. As for the other reasons, well not even I could tell you what they are but I trust that they will work together for good.