When I woke on Monday morning, it felt very similar to the morning of my London 2012 final.
I felt sick and extremely anxious.
Psychology tells us that anxiety and excitement have a similar response in the body.
If we can reframe our stress and anxiety into one of excitement and opportunity we are more likely to perform better.
The difference this Monday
morning is how do I reframe what is coming my way?
It’s no sporting race where the worst that can happen is losing out on a medal.
Today is the accumulation of three weeks of X-rays, scans and hours
in oncology.
I’m terrified – completely in bits.
I had broken down over the weekend and found myself on the phone to a helpline, crying.
I was scared as in 13 years an X-ray had never picked something up, and I was convinced that in a few hours I was going to be told my lungs and chest scans had shown my tumour had spread. I could not get this narrative out of my mind and I thought I was looking at my own death. No amount of stoic thinking was helping – I was at my end.
Much like a boxer going 12 rounds and being gassed out before the final bell, I felt the fight I have had in me was in the final rounds. I was not sure I could take another diagnosis.
As I hit accept on the Uber app I felt my heart sink and I thought I was going to throw up. The 30-minute journey was thankfully distracted with talking football, then the reality hit. The car stopped outside the cancer centre and that anxiety kicked in again.
I muttered the words “Here we go, David. This is it. The end of the road.”
You know, it’s not like me to be
in this mindset but I just had this deep belief that this was going to be bad news.
As I sat down the lady next to me started crying, she shared the fact that it was her first day here and she was feeling very overwhelmed.
I couldn’t fix her but I could sit with her, so I shared her moment and shared my knowledge of the building and where to get the best coffee.
In this moment we helped each other, we gave each other that
shoulder to cry on.
It wasn’t long until my name appeared on the board and I was on my way to floor one.
When you reach there it’s another waiting room and I mostly sit looking at my feet scared.
I heard my name and took one deep breath just to tell myself to be strong. Just as I am making my way in I hear a voice, “David, can I have your next of kin?”
I almost fall over with the shock. “Oh my god, this is going to be bad news; why does she need my next of kin?” Little did I know it was just to update the system.
It had been a roller-coaster of a journey, then to be sitting opposite my oncologist with the words that followed the best I have heard.
“David, there is no sign of anything in your scans.”
I broke down in tears and just sat crying with my head in my hands.
What the X-ray had picked up was the damage to my spine from me walking with paralysis.
This has twisted my spine badly and explains the pain.
I could have hugged the doctor, I didn’t know what to do or say. I just cried.
I wish I could bottle that feeling, the feeling of the gift of life.
It is like no other feeling in the world – as if every sense goes into overdrive.
As I stopped crying there was only one thought in my mind.
“I get to live.”
