Today came and went – still feeling OK.
It rained constantly today – the heavy thud of the drops could be heard all through the house. Quite comforting actually. I found a gap in it’s incessant work, and got to go for a short walk with my daughter. The air felt light and I gulped in buckets of it. A stark contrast to the air in the house. There’s a sense of being free in the open air. I always relished being outside but that has intensified in me now. Everything has somehow. Things seem to be in bright technicolour sometimes, which smothers you. This can be good and bad actually. Cancer has no calibration. There is no standard scale of readings. Every hour, day and week is different. Learning to gauge your reactions to these formulations is bloody hard and if you can do it, please let me know.
Given the rain pelting down I was surprised the cat hadn’t returned home sooner. I started to look out for him about 4pm. I’d last seen him about 10am before the clouds began to fall apart. By 5pm I was feeling uneasy. Wellies on, looking around the garden for him.
We have fantastic neighbours behind us. They love seeing him and he knows he’s welcome there. He usually comes home over the fence that separates us. You know he’s coming, you hear their dogs bark, followed by a scratchy run up the fence and a small thud on the ground as his paws hit the bark in our garden. My eyes search the fence but there is no noisy bark or scratchy sound. By 6pm I’m on full alert. Anxiety swills around in my stomach.
6.30pm and my family have pricked up their ears to the now stony silent woman prowling from garden to garden – front door to back door. The rain isn’t going anywhere still, so they are all telling me he has taken shelter somewhere. We are all out looking. I feel really unsettled with a feeling that this is not going to end well. I cannot lose him now. Please not now. Not while I have cancer. Surely to God that’s not allowed in my current game of life? I feel sick to the pit of my stomach. Silently retching, I swallow down the nausea and keep looking at the fence.
8pm now and I am wanting to pull my skin off. I am drowning beneath a huge mass of something. He’s been gone ten hours. I’m bloody helpless and my distress thermometer won’t stop rising. Trying to rationalize this fear is not an option anymore. I can’t quite believe this has caused me so much anxiety and angst.
Where is he?
I’m now preparing to cancel my clients tomorrow…..”No, It’s not that, I am well, it’s because I have lost my cat and I am in agony”.
Thirty minutes later, eyes still fixed on the fence – ears searching for the noise of his arrival and there he appears. Soaking wet through, his grey fur plastered to his small frame, brambles and leaves hanging off him. I scream out his name and he throws himself at me. Rolling on his back – green porcelain eyes wide open, full of eager hellos.
I leave him filling his face and drag myself off to get ready for bed. My body starts to regulate itself as I lie down, and he’s not long before he joins me, licking and grooming the day away.
It’s a this point it hits me.
This strong active explosion of anxiety and helplessness wasn’t just about my cat tonight. This situation had given me a convenient place to put what was clearly bubbling away just below the surface. The crippling emotional beating was because I have breast cancer and I don’t want breast cancer. Boo disappearing like this had given my anxiety something to do.
