Is you a-feared?

“…oh that’s horrible Noah, you must have been so scared.” “I know what it’s like to be that scared when you first find out; I remember what it is reminiscent of.” “Hasn’t it been so scary, were all praying for you.” “But don’t worry; everything will work out all right.”

Most letters to me begin with people telling me how sorry they are (to hear about the cancer). Then they go on to tell me how scared I must be, or how horrifying it must have been to find out. And almost always they conclude with how everything will be all right. Now don’t get me wrong. I appreciate the hell out of everyone who has written to me. The letters I have gotten have been torches of light in an otherwise bleak and cold tunnel. Indeed there have been some letters that were veritable bonfires of goodwill.

However from the first letter I received, to the most recent one, the first paragraph always tells me how frightened I must be. They never say what I should be terrified of? I assume it’s the possibility of death. But to be honest, death doesn’t scare me that much. I’m not going to search it out, or do something foolish, but I’m not scared of dying. Indeed it is guaranteed that I will die some day. So will you. So will all the soccer moms and teeny boppers who watch twighlight with a passion. And it doesn’t matter whether they follow team Edward or Jacob!

Something I learned when my brother died, by the way he died; that anyone, no matter how healthy they seem can die in the tick between the seconds. On the flip side since I’ve gotten the cancer I’ve been bombarded with stories of people who were told they had a month to live (or some such thing) and then lived for the next million billion years (slight exaggeration). So I guess that leads me to think it isn’t the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog.

Or possibly death isn’t what I should have been scared of. Maybe it was the pain? However was already experiencing pain by the time I got diagnosed. Or at least what I thought at the time was pain. I didn’t know that much about cancer then (truth be told, it hasn’t been explained to me yet, so I still don’t know much more than I did then). Should I be afraid of the unknown? Could it be the lengthy procedures? Perhaps I should have been worried about the long periods of boredom  punctuated only by bouts of pain as my medication wears off to prove that time is actually passing and not just a figment of my imagination? Maybe the people who told me I must have been scared didn’t rightly know what I should have been scared of?

But at least everyone is sure that it’s all gonna be fine and work out. I’m actually also in this boat, so I can’t make too much fun of it. Of course I was also in the now sunken raft of “that thing on my tongue couldn’t be cancer.” But yeah, I’m going through surgery and that’s the big thing. Once that’s over, as long as no cancers cells are left on my tongue I’ll be good to go.

Well after the radiation. It’s going to be the radiation that both sucks and blows. Everything I hear is that the radiation is going to make life hell. There will be temporary problems. Permanent problems are also just short of assured. I guess the one thing I am afraid of is the radiation.