The New Normal

If my prognosis is correct then “Survivor Guilt’ ‘is something that I do not have to worry about for much longer. However, I am still very worried that the terminal diagnosis I have been given (and told everyone about) will be wrong, and I will look silly. In other words I am more worried about not dying than as I am about dying!

How ridiculous is that! What if it doesn’t happen and I die 30 year’s from now in my bed? Destitute and no family or friends? They used up all their energy in the first few months, years etc. Now it is a standing joke, another lie (perhaps he’ll) never die!). One for a Ditty.

All that sympathy, pre-grief, etc. wasted. It could have been used on someone who deserved it!

Prior to my cancer coming back I even had counseling sessions to help with my survivor guilt! What a fool!

Instead of just accepting how lucky I am and making the best of it, I wasted time worrying that I was not dying, and that I would look silly! I wasted time worrying about the people who did not make it. Did this help them, or me, or anyone else? No.

And all the time there are people who have a similar prognosis as me doing amazing things, raising millions to fight cancer, inspiring those around them. They are (were)amazing people, how do they do it, why can’t I? Why should a lazy, lying, good for absolutely nothing, like me, live and these brilliant inspiring people end up dying?

For instance, Deborah Jones (Poop Girl), springs to mind. She was such an amazing person with everything that she achieved, and all I can do is go ‘crying in my soup’ about survivor guilt!

Don’t get me wrong I was never going to raise millions in charity money, never going to inspire other people to do so. I guess the people who do this sort of thing are already special and would have done something special whatever happened, the cancer would be a catalyst for them not a eureka moment.

But at least I could have made the most of the time that I have. That is the greatest sin, wasting the precious time that is before me.

So I need to do something that I would not normally have done…

Even if it is to tell my family that I love them!

Focusing on ‘survivor guilt’. After being given the ‘all clear’ from lung cancer I was racked with feelings of guilt. My reasoning was as follows:

On the day that I was diagnosed around 129 people in the UK were going through the same experience and emotions (from Google AI Overview). Looking back at the articles in this blog it felt like a death sentence, and that is how it is playing out, albeit a lot slower than I had anticipated. There are a lot of confusing statistics for survival depending on age, health, type of cancer, etc. but I settled on a 20% chance of still being alive in 5 years.

Well, here I am seven years later, and whilst I would like to say I am going strong, I am not. What I can say is I am not dead yet, I can still smile, I can still laugh, I can still hug my family and tell them I love them, I can still write this blog! The first five years were full of hope, I was fresh from the initial fight and felt indestructible again. I had beaten cancer, or at least so I thought.

And then I hadn’t. It came back, this time determined to do a ‘proper job’.

I thought I was cancer clear and this triggered ‘survivor guilt’.

What is ‘survivor guilt’?

Maggie’s define Survivor Guilt as “…common among survivors of traumatic events—such as war, natural disasters, accidents, and even acute or long term illnesses such as cancer. Survivor guilt refers to the sense of guilt or responsibility that can occur when one person survives a traumatic event that others did not’… Cancer can be a traumatic event too…. (Moving beyond survivor guilt, Cancer Treatment Centres of America)“

My guilt was driven simply by the fact that I had survived a cancer that should have killed me, much earlier and I was not making the most of of the time I had been given, the time that most of the other people, who were diagnosed on the same day, did not get.

I had the ‘gift of time’, a gift more valuable than I could have imagined.

I was not jumping out of airplanes, climbing mountains, walking to Katmando. I was not raising vast sums of money for cancer research, I was not sharing my experience to give hope to others, I was not bringing any joy to the world or my fellow cancer sufferers. Why?

I wasn’t doing it when I didn’t have cancer, why would having cancer change this? It can change things, you see the amazing people on the TV, like the Poo Lady Deborah Jones. People say “…it must change your outlook on life, wanting to make the most of every second?”. I was sitting wallowing in pity for those who no longer wanted or needed it. No it was worse than this, it was self pity, the absolute worst of them all!

I had some counseling sessions and they said “give yourself permission to be happy!” and “…do things that make you happy”. I did and to some extent it helped a bit.