I was recently talking to one of my coworkers. This particular lady and I have known each
other for almost 15 years. We worked
together side by side for many of those years, sharing an office space. We have a whole lot in common. Besides being coworkers, we are both
Christians, we both live in the same town, and love talking about our
families. Now, we have something else in
common. We’re both cancer
survivors.
The topic of our conversation wasn’t cancer or chemotherapy,
or any of those things. It was something
that only another survivor can understand:
fear. The fear of waking up in
the morning with an unusual pain, or of feeling differently today than you did
yesterday and thinking "is that cancer?"
We’re both on regular checkups, which require blood work and
scans. The period of time between have
the test performed and getting the results can be quite nerve wracking. There’s a term for it—scanxiety. She had recently had her regular check up and
gotten the results back, thankfully, they were all normal. But the fear of being told once again that
cancer has been working away in your body is real.
Someone once told me “You just have to get passed it.” To a point they were right; in fact, I
gave that exact same advice to my friend as we were talking. But I understand that it is a process. I’ve been going through the process
myself.
Fear can hold you back from living your life completely
again. Survivors may find themselves
thinking “I can’t start that new job I’d really love, I might get sick again.” Or, “I can’t buy that house, what if I have
to go through the medical bills again?”
Cancer isn’t cheap. My personal irrational fear “I can’t put my
family through that again, I can’t make my wife go through that again.”
You may be thinking, you’ve beat cancer; you should be on
top of the world. That’s true, but the
truth is also that I had cancer and didn’t even know it. It could come back. It could start it’s work again.
Fear can inhibit you in many ways. Fear can tie your hands and put a gag in your
mouth. There are some ways to fight fear
though.
That’s the important part. Fear comes from the unknown. One of my boys used to be scared of the
dark. I asked him one night why he was
afraid of the dark. His answer was very
revealing. His answer was that he didn’t
know what was out there. To fight the
fear of my cancer returning, I have committed to being educated. I’ve learned a lot about my particular type
of cancer. Now, I am committed to
keeping all of my doctor’s appointments, getting my blood work and my scans as
scheduled. I’m going to know the status
of my health.
Fear also comes from a lack of faith. Remember the Bible passage that tells us how
the disciples were on the boat in the middle of the sea, in the middle of the
night, in the middle of a storm? Jesus
appeared on the water walking towards them.
It was Peter who said Lord, if it be you, let me come to thee. Jesus told Peter to come on. Peter got out of the boat and started to walk
to Jesus on top of the water, and
about middle way there, he began to feel fear.
And what happened? Peter began to
sink. He thought he was going to
die. What did Jesus do? Reached out and saved him. The Lord asked Peter, thou of little faith,
why did you fear? Fear and faith cannot
live together. To combat fear, we must
keep our faith strong.
Caregivers have fear.
I imagine my lovely wife must have had many conversations in her head
about whether or not she was taking good enough care of me. If she was getting me to eat enough, if I was
warm enough. One night I got the chills
so bad, I almost bounced myself out of the bed (not an exaggeration). Laura told me later, she was so scared; all
she could do was hold me and keep me covered up trying to get me warm.
Families have fear. I
can’t even begin to tell you how much it broke my heart when one of my boys
asked me if I was going to ever get better.
I can’t tell you how it broke my heart when one of my boys asked my wife
if I was going to die. They had to deal
with the fear that I might not beat my cancer.
You may be going through something right now that makes you
afraid. You don’t have to be
afraid. You can overcome your fear by
educating yourself and keeping your faith strong. Don’t let fear hold you back. Don’t let fear keep you prisoner. Break free from the bonds of your fear and just do it. We remember that it was Peter that began to sink; but what about those other eleven guys that stayed in the boat? I bet that later on they had wished they got out of the boat and walked on the water too! Don't miss your chance to do something great because of fear!
