If you haven’t already, I recommend that you read my previous post first.

Previously, I told you that initial testing on my cancer had identified some marker patterns suggestive of a mutated gene. This means that I was always at higher risk of being diagnosed at some point in my life. Because of this, I was given the option of genetics testing as a way of determining why it arose and if there was an inherited cause.

People often think that one of the biggest causes of cancer outside of smoking is hereditary. However, I would learn that only a small percentage of cancers are inherited (cancer itself isn’t passed down, but mutated genes can be).

Not only that but, even if genetics are thought to be the cause, many people choose not to complete the testing because it can, undoubtedly, cause tensions among family members – some members simply do not want to know the results for fear it will cause them to feel guilty about passing it on to a child, or even to blame a parent for their cancer.

Receiving a cancer diagnosis can bring up all sorts of different and powerful emotions and I find that there’s a real vulnerability that comes with this. Living with cancer, perhaps not surprisingly, is a really scary thing and, for me, the news that I was going to die was especially difficult to cope with. Whilst there isn’t necessarily a right or wrong way to feel though, it is important to allow yourself to go through this and accept that it’s normal to experience a range of emotions like guilt and anger.

You can read my post on ‘First Reactions‘ for a more detailed breakdown on how to cope with a cancer diagnosis).

I didn’t encounter any resistance from my family when I decided to go down this path and I did so knowing that, even if it turned out that I had inherited this gene, it was beyond anyone’s control and I wasn’t going to blame anyone. Right from the start I decided to accept my prognosis and to only look forward.

In fact, one of the main reasons I started this blog, other than to help people with cancer live better lives, was to try and help people cope with their diagnosis and learn how to treat themselves with kindness, understanding, and acceptance. These things are super important in anyone’s life but especially if you are facing something as devastating as a cancer diagnosis.

In part one, I told you that this isn’t a time for looking back, and it isn’t a time for regrets either. Try instead to focus on the things you can control because one thing I’ve learned is that it isn’t enough to just eat well. If you want to live well then you need to look after your mind too. It isn’t about pseudo eating or life plans either. These can appear to be meaningful or comprehensive but upon closer inspection, often lack authenticity or substance.

The Straight Story

You have to stay true to yourself and know what truly matters to you. What truly mattered to me here was my daughter because the marker patterns were suggestive of lynch syndrome, a condition that affects the 1 in 300 people, usually with a strong history of gastric and bowel cancers in the family (so it fit).

The real motivation for me was being told that if I did have lynch syndrome, there was a 50% chance that my daughter would inherit the gene too. That idea filled me with absolute dread as a parent. I don’t want to imagine a future where my wife and daughter have to face this terrible disease again, and I can’t be there with them.

There are so many heartbreaking chapters of every cancer story, and I didn’t want this to be another one. I needn’t have worried though, because, when the results came back, it was determined that lynch syndrome isn’t the answer for my cancer diagnosis. My daughter, thankfully, has not been deemed to have a higher cancer risk, which is all that really matters to me.

I feel like I cope well with my cancer diagnosis on a daily basis (this would be a pretty useless blog if I didn’t), but I only have to think about leaving her, and I’m in floods of tears. Still, there is further testing that they can complete on my tumour, which may identify the cause (probably a one-off event), but I guess my question to you is, does it matter? Right now, the cause of my cancer is unexplained, and even if we do further testing, we may never know why it arose.

That’s why I chose to accept it, and I began to think about it in another way. If I gave myself cancer, could I start to live my life in a way that was actually going to help keep me alive? I may have hung a welcome mat outside in the past, but I would turn my body into a hostile environment for cancer and let it know that it certainly wasn’t welcome anymore.

If nothing else, I figured that anything I could do to reduce this load is going to be helpful right, and so, I set out on a journey of discovery that… saw me do some pretty stupid things actually (if someone told me that connecting my nipples to a car battery would keep me alive, I’d probably have done it). That journey is coming next.