Hypothetical Thought Bubbles

I am having an experience.  The experience is that I got sick, and this corresponded to me getting diagnosed with a disease, and the diagnosis began to dictate a few events in my life: 1) I took medical leave from work.  2) I have to go to the doctor every week.  3) I have a tube thingy hanging out of my body. 4) I got a dramatic haircut and sometimes I put wigs on.  5) I have to be careful about keeping healthy and avoiding germs.

These are the facts surrounding my current experience.  Maybe you have similar things happening in your life.  Maybe you are pregnant and facts one, two, and/or five ring true to your current experience.  Maybe you have a spontaneous personality and can relate to fact number four.  Maybe you aren't presently having any of these experiences, but are dealing with some other out-of-the-ordinary event in your personal timeline.  It's normal, right?  It's life.

Lately, I've been trying to understand this insane reaction I have to the word "cancer".  I seriously hate it.  I hate the word, I mean.  I actually don't mind the thing itself.  The thing itself is an experience--I have respect for it.  But the word is so gross.  I don't want to be associated with it.  I don't want people to say it in my presence.  Before I had to claim it as a thing belonging to myself, I formed a very strong negative opinion about it.  I never liked the power behind it.  I don't like the image I have of it.  I don't like all the proudly bald, pink ribbon-wearing ladies marching for a "cause".  I don't like how people who have it are supposed to fight it and beat it, like it's a terrorist.  I just hate the word cancer like I hate the phrase, "Make America Great Again."

Recently I started to notice my subtle, subconscious irritation toward people (particularly strangers) who are sympathetic to me having cancer.  For example, I have been suspect of anyone who gives me puppy dog eyes or lingers too long in a hug.  I am also annoyed with anyone who tells me I'm still pretty.

Last week, a random parent from school who I have never met made a meal for me.  She wrote the sweetest note about how brave I am and how people are rooting for me.  It was the kindest and most generous gesture, and yet I felt extremely perturbed.  I thought, "What makes me more brave than anyone else living their life?"  Also, "Do you think I'm so withered and sad that I need a stranger to tell me I'm brave?" And then I thought, "Why I am so irrationally offended by this?"  Is it possible to be brimming with gratitude and resentment at the same time?

I've meditated long and hard about why I am inclined to scowl at people who are nice to me during this time in my life.  What I've realized is that my ego is terribly afraid of being seen as a weakdick.  I envision these fantasies behind every compassionate glance or warm gesture.  I imagine what people are imagining about me.  I imagine that people are associating me with that image of cancer that I despise, the one I need to be brave in order to beat.  I imagine they are pitying this once beautiful, young girl who is gonna lose her hair and puke after chemo, and who won't have babies cuz that shit fucked up her ovaries.  I imagine they think I might die--I might become some gray, skeletal figure with tubes hanging out of me before I take my last breath and my poor husband of only four years has to say goodbye.  And I get so angry because that image belongs to the word, but it doesn't belong to me.  I realize I am being slightly paranoid and insecure here, but I know I can't be the only one who has visualized outlandish, worst-case-scenario stuff when finding out someone has cancer.  I know it happens and I simply am not interested in starring in these hypothetical thought bubbles.  

I need everyone to know I'm OK.  I'm not gross.  I'm not sad.  I'm not dying.  I am just living my life according to the current facts, just like everyone else.  If I feel that people know that, then I can tone down the subconscious sass I have toward their charity.  I truly am grateful for the love.  I want to feel it fully and completely, without all this hostility.