Everything I know about fear, and the hardest blog post I've had to write

This post was one of the hardest I've ever written but I've been doing a lot of listening to the You, Me and The Big C Podcast this week after the tragic passing of Rachael Bland. I had only been following Rachael on Instagram since my diagnosis back in March but I found her so inspiring and amazing and I was really sad when I heard the news on Wednesday.

One of their episodes touched on something really interesting and was a bit of an unexpected wake up call for me. They were talking about the pressure for cancer patients to stay positive and say everything is fine all the time. I realised I've been feeling this pressure massively and maybe its meant that I haven't always been totally honest with myself.

Remaining positive is important for me and a big part of me dealing with my diagnosis.  But has this pressure sometimes got in the way of me being totally honest about how I feel? Admitting that sometimes I feel fear about my diagnosis is really hard for me to do because it feels a little like showing weakness and that is the last thing I feel and absolutely not the way I want people to see me. I absolutely dread those pitting looks I received the first time we suspected I might have cancer and because of that I've never really gone into detail about some of my bad days.

But in reality maybe I should, because at the end of the day we all have bad days and being able to recognise those emotions and deal with them straight away is the key to not letting them get the best of us. My bad days, or bad five minutes as they can also often be look a bit like this:

It hits me when I least expect it. It could be a film, a song or at 3:00am when I wake up to go to the loo for the millionth time in the night. It starts with an icy feeling in my feet or hands and spreads through my whole body, leaving me feeling numb, the only thought running through my head is the idea that far sooner than I had planned everything could be gone. I feel sad about all the little things I would miss, but mainly I feel sad for Tom, for our little boy and for my family. I'm not ready to say good buy to any of them.

But I have to go through it. Eventually you exhaust yourself, the tears dry up and your mind regains control. You pick yourself up and carry on with something totally normal. Because you have to, because right now is all you have and right now your whole life is that one ordinary moment.

I've been told I am brave so many times since starting this blog but I have never, ever felt it. I didn't have a choice in this so I'm just dealing with it in the best way that I can because I want to enjoy every second of my life as much as possible and I can't do that if I'm worrying or feeling sorry for myself all the time.

It's quite ironic that talking about my fear feels like one of the bravest things I think I've done since starting this blog, because believe you me this is the one thing that makes me feel completly vulnerable and exposed.

Thanks for reading

Katie xxx