I woke up in the hospital unable to move or speak, with no idea about where I was. IAmA 25 year old cancer patient (AMA)

I'm sorry to hear that you're going through this, at first I thought it was /r/nosleep or /r/WritingPrompts.

How did you find out you were sick?

One day I started coughing up blood and was feeling very dizzy. I got to the hospital with a friend, which is the last thing I remember. They found the cancer in my lung, notified my family, and operated me the same day in an attempt to save my life.

About a week after I was woken up (this would then be about a month after I blacked out), an oncologist, the surgeon who performed my operation, another doctor, two nurses, and my family sat down around my bed and I was told that I had cancer.

At the time, I was not really able to understand what it meant. I knew that this day was going to be the first day I would try to eat yogurt (all my food was through my nose in a tube), and my surgeon had said a sentence, "you have to go from yogurt to steak", meaning that was all I had to worry about. So when the "you have cancer" conversation was given to me, a month after it was given to my family, all I was saying out loud was "From yogurt to steak. From yogurt to steak" (I was mostly out of the respirator at that point and had started speaking again).

That's incredible. Was the doctor able to tell you how long you had the cancer before symptoms began to arise?

They have no idea about for how long I had cancer before they found it. I had symptoms that we can track at least 8 months earlier, which was also pains caused by the tumor. So I had a sizable tumor then. Who knows how many months (years?!) I have had cancer?

WHAT SORT OF PAINS! I HAVE PAINS!

It was muscle pains. felt like a burning sensation. Working out helped. getting my muscles nice warmed up by lifting weights or similar.

Another thing I had noticed was the fact that I was getting out of shape. I had started running with a friend and we completed an official run of 13.x kilometers at around the same time. We then trained for a half marathon, and I realized that even though I tried to follow his curve of getting in better running shape, I could not keep up.

So yes, I ran a half marathon with a giant tumor in my lung. I was close to giving up after 15 kilometers, but after eating and walking some, I completed the race. about 3 months later I ended up at the hospital.

if it was me (god bless you and i hope I'm never in your situation) i'd make a fucking beautiful tattoo with "from yogurt to steak" somewhere around my body. badass as fuck, good luck to you on everything in your life

People often ask me something like "So did you get any tattoos or something after those crazy things?", and I mostly answer something like "you know, I have 5 scars on my body from last year, I think thats enough"..... buuuuut.... I hereby make a sweeping statement. I will get that tattoo mr. or miss L147. I promise and I will take a picture of it and make sure to somehow send it to you.

Make a post I wanna see it too.

I am knew to reddit. Anything specific people would do so people can follow that? a "post" is a thread somewhere you can "follow" that I can update with the picture?

I'd say you'd probably post to /r/pics with a title along the lines of:

I'm the 25 year old cancer patient who recently woke up in hospital unable to move or speak. Here is an update on the tattoo I promised I'd get.

Then you could link back to this IAmA in the comments of that post. Enough people have seen this IAmA for that to work just fine I'd say.

makes sense. I will look into finding a tattoo person and think of a design of it. I might wait till after I am done with rays though. which which will start in 2 days and be a 6 week thing. I think after that I'll get it :)

You should also consult your doctor(s) to make sure your immune system is up to the task. Using a good tattoo artist is generally safe, but getting pierced by a needle hundreds of times can always be a potential vector for infections.

I'm glad you're alive to do this AMA. Best of luck and all the blessings to you.

I've already gotten pierced with needles hundreds of times, and I dont even have tattoos ;)

no but for sure I will consult my oncologist about it :)

Very glad you made it. Just wanted to say that tats have a story sometimes you want to forget and not have to repeat every single time someone sees it? What sounds like a great idea might be annoying later on down the road - unpopular opinion, I'm sure, but just want to share it.

sure thats a thing to consider. Cancer is not my identity anymore, but it will always be a huge part of the man I have become. I am not worried about that happening :)

They found the cancer in my lung, notified my family, and operated me the same day in an attempt to save my life.

That seems incredibly fast.

it was either fast, or my death

How long were you out for before you woke up? Did you know you were sick beforehand?

I was out for 3 weeks before they successfully woke me up.

The only signs of illness were muscle pains in my back (which later showed to be caused by the growing tumor), but I had no idea I had cancer. I just collapsed one day and were helped to the hospital where I blacked out.

can you describe these muscle pains? Were they different than back pain one would normally experience in anyway? Maybe you didn't think so at the time but in hindsight?

Maybe, maybe not. Hard to say, and anything I say here shouldnt determine your actions regarding any suspicion you may have on your own health.

If in doubt, consult your doctor, is probably the only advice I will give :)

Is there anything you would recommend people to see a doctor about, aside from back pains? The idea of getting hit by cancer out of the blue like that is terrifying.

See thats a really tough one. In my case I actually went to my own doctor and complained about those back pains. I have always been very physically active, and we agreed on that I should stop working out for a month and see how my body reacted. A few weeks later, I was in the hospital bed with doctors fighting for my life every day.

What should my doctor have done? sent me to a CT scan because I had back pains? Its unfortunately not always easy to spot if its cancer or just something that will pass by itself.

Especially young people often get treated wayyyyy too late by the system because the suspicion of cancer or other fatal diseases only comes into the picture much later than with older people.

I cant touch upon any specific symptoms, but I'd much rather go to the doctor 1 time too many. Its a hard balance. Try not to get too paranoid, but still be attentive to the signal your body gives you

I've had some muscle 'pain' in my back for the past couple months and reading all this is making me uneasy. Can you describe the pain? or was it more of a discomfort?

I'm about to schedule a doctors appointment...

I dont see it as a bad thing to go talk to your doctor about it, and tell him you are concerned.

For me, it was burning sensations. It was in my backside, but also on the top side of my abdominals. So it was pressure on both sides of my body coming from the tumor on the inside.

Shit. I have super bad back pains, and the docs just keep telling me to work out, so opposite of you. Anyway, have had 2 CT scans, both came back showing absolutely nada. Keeps me wondering though... And I have this ugly cough as well, no blood though. But yours was actually in thee stomach, the tumor? I've only had my back and hip done, because that's where the pain is... :S

The coughing of blood was because the tumor started to collapse inside my lung and started to bleed into my lung tissue. So I was kinda drowning. It was not in my stomach.

When I get a full checkup to see the size of my current tumors and to see if any spreading of the disease is happening, I get a CT, a PET, and a MRI scan.

Why were you unable to move or speak? What areas were affected by the sarcoma that would render you that helpless?

The reason I couldnt move, was because I had been out for 3 weeks, been through a big operation and on heavy drugs. My body was weak, and my brain had lost its ability to recruit my muscles.

I could not speak because I was in a respirator. My lung capacity was between 0 and 10% at the low point. When in a respirator, no air passes by your vocal cord and then you cant make any sounds.

So as such, it was the "side effects" of the cancer that rendered me that helpless, and not so much the cancer itself

how anxious you became regarding that state ? were you sedated?

I have never been so afraid in my life and I know I will never be as afraid again

Afraid how? What was going on in your head at the moment when you woke up? Could you explain your fear please?

Btw thanks for the ama!

it was a fear based on not understanding. I had memories of the past weeks of my psychosis, and being killed and tortured in different situations. So at first it was just coming to terms with even being alive. And being human, cause that was not necessarily the case during psychosis.

The fact that I could then not ask why I was alive, or what the fuck else was going on, gave a very panic like state of mind, yet nothing I could act upon, which was a strange duality

You mention "intensive care psychosis." What is that? What was your experience with it? I have schizophrenia so I wonder if your psychosis was like mine.

I am not an expert of this, but I have been told that its something up to 80% of intensive care patients experience in some shape or form.

Basically, the body goes through some massive and stressful changes + its being drugged by some very heavy medication. The mind tries to construct reality as best it can (like it always does), but in this case it gets heavily distorted.

I have experienced many completely twisted events during my 3 week "break" from life. I've been mostly completely gone, or partially awake due to the dosage of medication they were using.

Its was almost only concerning death and suffering, or some kind of containment. I've hallucinated a lot of torture situations. E.g a person who casually walked around and waited for me to die, after destroying my "blood vial" - a big glass figure with all my blood inside. She had a small glass of blood she could give me to keep me alive just a little longer to keep the torture going. Her brain was hanging out of her head, and bystanders saw me through a hole in the wall without doing anything to help me.

I've talked to dwarfs, I've sacrificed myself to Allah and had 2 conversations with him. So many vivid experiences. I dont know how they relate to schizophrenia, but feel free to comment and tell me something about it :)

During psychotic episodes I have seen sinister people in my house, I have seen a bloody torso and severed leg, and I have had roaches crawling on me. i have heard voices of aliens and read the thoughts of other people. Sounds a lot like your experience. I'm glad you recovered.

I think our experiences during psychosis are fairly similar. Thanks for sharing

I've sacrificed myself to Allah and had 2 conversations with him.

Curious on the source of this - are you Muslim?

I am an Atheist. Not sure why it was actually Allah I talked to. As I mention in another reply, I think it may be because I've been conditioned to see the middle east and Islam as a bad thing, and then my brain latched on to that "foreign place and ideology"

So it seems you almost literally have a new lease on life... What are you going to do with it?

"I am going to live every day to the fullest. Enjoy every second of every day..." Well. lets be honest, shall we? I am still just a human being. We fall back into old patterns and bad habits, right?

Yes, I have "a new life" and I consider my life as the 24 years "before cancer happened" and the 1 year "after cancer happened". I have for sure changed, and it has given me entirely new perspectives. I can pinpoint that I am much less selfish now, and always have an urge to help others. Much more elaborate than before. I never get angry anymore. I have realized how unfair life is, and that you just have to get over that fact and get out of it what you want.

I was going to study a masters in Game Design before I got cancer, and guess what I do now? I just recently started said masters degree, and I am thrilled to be doing that.

I dont really know what I am going to do with my life. however long or short it may be, but I want to change the world. I am contemplating this every day, and I havent figured it out yet, but I am so very happy that I have the opportunity to choose a road and follow it.

just another thought I've had: "Do I want to just have my old life back? Or should I revise it completely?". I still dont have an answer.

Just keep following your passions. And don't forget to delete your history.....

Well, I am who I am because of my history. I am learning a lot, and there is a lot of positives to be gained from traumatic events. I have a strong character, much more so than before the cancer.

Even though cancer sucks, you owe yourself the favor of taking the good parts from even the worst of experiences.

masters in Game Design

Don't do this. Get a degree in media design instead.

Working in the game industry will destroy your love of games and is hell on earth. As a programmer, I've watched a dozen people quit IT because of the video game industry.

Unless you're not talking about video games; but rather board games or something- I wouldn't know anything about that.

hehe, thanks for the advice :) I have been interested in Game Design for 5 years. My bachelor is in web programming.

I am not sure that I will end up in the game industry. I have just chosen this because I like programming in creative environments.

Would you mind going into more detail about what the rehabilitation process was? What kept you going?

sure. It had different phases. The body gets very weak from not being used, so while I was in the hospital bed, just experiencing lifting my arms and moving my legs and feet, we had to start right away.

In the early phases I would be strapped to a "bed-bike" which is put on the edge of the bed, and then they would attach my feet and the bike would kinda run the circular motion on its own, and then I would try to help.

That, or being lifted (not by people, but an ACTUAL lift) into a chair, and sit there for like 20 minutes. Yes, that was a workout. Sitting still, until the pain in my ass was too much.

Later I would try to stand for the first time, assisted by a nurse on either side. Later being assisted from my bed to a chair 1 meter away and try to eat while I was "working out".

Eventually, I would walk a few steps holding on to a rolling "chair". And later walk on my own.

I would then join a center for cancer patients once I got out of the hospital. I would go there twice a week and lift weights and walk/run on a treadmill. At first I would go there in my wheelchair, pushed by my sister. There was no way I could walk the 1 kilometer distance there myself yet, but later I did go by myself. On and on, every week, more progress.

What kept me going? (I've already blabbered quite a bit here, so will just tell you about one aspect of it). I have tried to be completely helpless. Not being able to do ANYTHING on my own. the privilege of motion is something we all take for granted, but I decided that I would learn to use my body again. No matter what.

Hi /u/Hocico_reddit I am a soft-tissue sarcoma survivor!

First off, what kind of cancer did you have? I had Rhabdomyosarcoma in the nasopharyngeal and my jaw, it also metastasized into my lungs.

Are you doing the VAC chemotherapy protocol? If so are you having the problem where you can no longer stand flat on the ground, you are stuck on your toes?

I just think it's really cool to see someone else in the same boat as I am doing an AMA. If you have any questions or want to get in touch, feel free to PM me! :-)

Hello there :) first of all, congratulations! :)

My cancer is called, Synovial Sarcoma. My chemotherapy protocol was doxyrubicin for 6 series, no effect, and then ifosfamid for 6 series, which had a nice effect. We tried 3 more series, but the results showed a stagnated sizes of my tumors. So we decided to move on to see if rays were possible, which luckily there are (with risks involved that I have greenlighted).

Not sure what VAC is? I did not have that side effect, sounds really odd :D

Did you also have operations or rays or other treatments? how smooth (if I may say so) was your treatment episode?

If you don't mind me asking, how is your prognosis and how are you doing now?

Its not easy to answer. I can't give a percentage or anything like that, as they do not have a lot of statistical knowledge on this type of sarcoma.

I got an operation on day 1 where they removed a pretty big tumor in my right lung. Since then I spent about 2 months in the hospital before returning home in a wheelchair to start my chemo treatment.

I have been in chemo for an entire year now, with mixed results, but in general a big success. I just stopped chemo and will start my 30 ray treatments on Wednesday. This treatment does have a chance at curing me, but its not at all certain (again no percentage to give).

I was told I could get rays last week, knowing that if I could not, the next chapter would have been life prolonging medication. Now, we are still in the "you might be cancer free some day" phase.

I have been in rehabilitation with physical therapists for 4-6 months, thereafter taken over the process myself. I have about 65% lung capacity, which will shrink during the rays treatment. My longest run was 2 months ago. 3 kilometers in 25 minutes, which is something I have worked on completing for a year :)

That's terrifying... What has been the hardest part of dealing with this?

Hard to say. I guess It was waking up to the helpless situation without having any idea about what had happened, and no understanding that it would get better. The 4 walls of the hospital room was my new world.

Of course dealing with the fact that I might die before I turn 30 is scary, and something I am still dealing with, but the much more present memories of the early stages of the hospitalization has haunted me more, I'll have to say

As a student nurse, I'm curious: Were you satisfied with your health care team? What did they do that really helped or made your stay/ helped you heal more comfortably? And what do you wish they could've done differently?

Overall I have been very satisfied. From the time in intensive care, to a regular hospitalization bed in the thorax department, and to ambulatory treatments during chemo.

I have met some amazing nursing staff that have done their best to assist my needs all the way!

I had one nurse on the intensive care unit who my family has also told me they found kinda strange. I hallucinated that she killed and tortured me. She was the one with her brains hanging out her head. I think that maybe since shes the only nurse I specifically remember torturing me has to do with her way of doing things.

After I woke up, and had spoken about being tortured, she came in the room and I looked at her and said. "I remember you!" being very scared. She had to take care of me that night, but they rescheduled staff so she would never be in my room for the remaining month I spent in intensive care.

I have nurses who tend to my chemo, who when I call them to get a blood test scheduled because the staff forgot, stay on the phone to hear how its been for me to start in school, and says "Oh btw, Helle says hi" because she just walked into her office while she was talking to me on the phone.

I came into my treatment day number 30 a month ago, and they had put balloons on my chemo "scepter" to celebrate, and I brought 3 kg of chocolate for the staff to thank them.

I think its tough to give you tips, since my situation and my personality probably prefers other things than other patients might. So its about getting to know the patient and acting accordingly.

I hear many coma patents live out separate lives while in coma, something like a dream. A friend of mine says he lived 20+ years, got married, had kids, etc. Did you experience anything while asleep?

only torture and death. no happy fairy tale here, Im afraid. I experienced many things, I have also described some of them in other replies, like being tortured dragging on forever, being a square mutant vomitting, sacrificing myself to Allah, and having conversations with him (I am an Atheist btw).

How do you support yourself financially? Working must be impossible.

Some people have kinda answered this for me, but I'll throw in my 2 cents.

I live in Denmark, which has a massive safety net for its citizens. The state pays for all my treatments and almost all the medication I take. I dont know the numbers, but I think a reasonable guess is that I have cost Denmark around 1 Million dollars the past year.

As part of the safety net, I got money from the state to sustain myself for the past 12 months. Now that I have started studying again, I wont get that money anymore, but I am currently applying for expanded SU.

SU is something we get in Denmark for studying, so we can spend our time on actually learning something and not working all the time to sustain ourselves. So then I apply to get an expanded amount because I cant have a study job on the side or anything like that.

Denmark Represent!!! Ballerup talking, how is it to be on Herlev?

I live way closer to Rigshospitalet ;) but my cancer is treated on Herlev. So I will have to go there for all my appointments, which is very inconvenient, but hey, I'm alive :)

What happened when you woke up? Did you start freaking out or did you calmly come to?

I heard a voice say "good morning, its the 29th of August and the time is .." well whatever the time was. around noon. I opened my eyes and saw the room I had been in for 3 weeks with clear vision, for the first time.

The first question I remember popped into my head was "why am I not dead? she killed me". I psychosis memory which was very prominent that moment.

Freaked out? well, depends on the definition of freaking out. I could very barely twitch my muscles and I couldnt make a single air molecule move, to make any sounds at all. But yes, in my head I was filled with questions about what the fuck was going on. Never had I been in so much need to express myself, only now I couldnt express myself at all.

I would consider myself crazy in the early stages, so I didnt really grasp the situation as well as I can describe it now, so most of the sensations I had was a mix of fear and not understanding.

Can you describe you experience with intensive care psychosis? Is it related to your physical condition, or just the stressful nature of being stuck in ICU?

I think its really just the stress the mind us under and side effects of medication (not sure which of these factors are most dominant). Its not the cancer itself that does it.

I did not hallucinate very much after I was successfully awaken. Most of the experiences I had are situations where I am either lying down to the right in a room or sitting to the left in the room. Which was the positions I was put in by the nursing staff.

Maybe I was being put in a cold chair in a slaughterhouse in the middle east -> they removed my covers and put me in a lift to a chair.

maybe I was a legless and armless mutant -> I suspect that when they were changing my cloths I could only feel the cloths' friction really on my torso, which made my mind think I was only a square

Hey there.

I'm so happy that you are moving forward. You are going through more than what most people in their 20's ever have to deal with, and that's more than admirable.

I don't want this question to come off to you as non-sensible, because I'm aware that it could. I'm curious about that one month period of time where you 'blacked out'. Typically, when someone sleeps for a long time, we sort of feel that it was long. 6 hours compared to 10 hours of sleep just feels different, even if that difference is subtle. But you didn't exactly "sleep" - so when you awoke for the first time, did it feel like a long time since you had been awake last? Or was it a different feeling?

Sort of a strange question, but just genuinely curious. Thank you for doing this AMA.

It was for sure a different feeling. Usually when you go to bed on a monday and wake up the next day, you dont really need to think that its tuesday. It just naturally is.

Those 3 weeks. I had no real thought about it in the beginning. I had no feeling if it was "a nights sleep", "a year", "an eternity". I had no grasp.

I remember it was my birthday in one of my psychosis memories, and thats in April, and my "coma state" was in August, so I had problems reconciling the "dreams" with any kind of timeframe.

As part of getting me out of the respirator, we switched between being in it, and not being in it. For some reason I panicked when I was being put back into the respirator. The solution was to give me a kind of sleep medicine that worked instantly, but could be dosed so I would only sleep for 10-15 minutes (no idea about what that stuff was).

I insisted they said the year, date, day, time to the second before giving me the drug, and then again when they woke me back up. You see when I was woken up 15 minutes later I was in the respirator and couldnt speak, so I could not ask them for the year, date, time to the second, so I really had to have them tell me right when I woke up so I knew I had only been gone for 15 minutes.

I was afraid I couldnt grasp it otherwise. would it seem like another 3 weeks had passed, even if it was just 15 minutes? I naturally didnt trust my brain to figure that out, so I needed to put that assignments to someone else than my brain.

Did the attitudes of people towards you change after your diagnosis?

Not very much no. I hear those stories of friends who cant handle it, but I have more or less the same base of friends I had before this whole thing started. Only, I have meet new interesting people on my path, many of them through a network of young people with cancer, where we share our experiences and do awesome events together.

I meet the greatest of support from people around me. I think its because I am open to them, and it allows them to be open towards me.

A little story to share though. I had a "friend - this guy I knew, but not really friends". I went to a study-bar to meet up with a bunch of people who hadnt seen me for months because well, I was in the hospital. I went there when I was still very weak. So I had a friend take me there in my wheelchair, but I needed this experience so bad. To try and see how it would be to be among people again (it was a fantastic experience btw). So this friend walks up to me and asks "ahm, so whats going on? why are you in that chair mate?". I tell him that I've been in the hospital for 2 months and that I am still recovering and now battling cancer. He looks at me and says "I think the best thing I can do now is to walk away". Then he turned and walked away, and I have never seen him since.

Have you picked up any kind of suggestions that relate to others being able to identify the need to check for cancer?

It's amazing that you may have had it for so long yet didn't know (amazing and scary).

Glad you're still going, OP! Keep up the good fight.

I have not been getting any tips or anything like that. sorry, not much to provide here.

I get reminded by a scene from the movie "50/50". The main character tells his mother that he has cancer. She gets up and walks to the kitchen and starts making green tea. The son asks what shes doing, and she says "green tea is supposed to decrease the chance for getting cancer by 10%" to which the son answers, "well mom, I already have cancer".

When smokers tell me, "oh I feel so bad smoking in front of you" I say the same thing. "well, I already have cancer. its yourself you should worry about"

My wife is going through cancer and I'm just curious... were your chemo treatments as outrageously priced as her's? We're looking at 32 grand for the first two.

I live in Denmark, in a very different system than I imagine you live in. I do not pay a dime for my treatment. Its all on tax payers.

So, now what?

2 days from now I will start rays. Been in chemo for a whole year, and looking forward to get my hair back!

future is grey, even my oncologists have no idea, but I can live a mostly "normal" life, if by normal we mean, getting up in the morning, going to school/work, eating, sleeping, going to events, and all that.

Sarcoma sufferer here, also paralyzed. Sorry to hear about your rough times.

What are you doing for fun these days?

Are you still paralyzed? What is your situation?

I like going to school, I just got back to take my masters degree in Game Design. I like computer games, and spent lots of hours on my computer :) I work out very often. Every day if I can. I go out with friends just to have a laugh and get drunk, just like I used to. I live in a dorm with 15 people, some of which are extremely good people, so I like hanging out with them, doing kinda nothing.

Any guess to what caused the cancer? Do you ever think about that?

I have plenty of unreasonable guesses! :) I am paranoid, and of course I am, why wouldnt I be? The doctors dont know. "unlucky mutation" they say.

Examples of what I believe (yet know are probably not the case).

Its because I am a meat-eater. Its because I am an Atheist, and I was wrong. Its because I slept for years with a TV pointing its red standby light towards by torso. Its because I had this habit of being on my computer kinda lying in the bed in this position the pushed half my torso together a bit. Its because I once asked the Universe to give me a challenge because I felt so strong that I could handle whatever would be thrown against me.

those are the things I have of the top of my head. I am only human, we look for patterns and explanations for things even when there are not there.

Do you ever feel suicidal? I am not sure I would be able to keep my spirits up like you do.

Sorry if it's taboo to ask. I just know I'd be prone to those kind of thoughts.

Nothing is taboo, you can ask anything!

When I was i my psychosis, I had countless, and I mean.... like really really crazy amounts of times where I KNEW that the next moment would be my death, but it just didnt happen. I was mad, angry, deeply wishing that I would just die so this misery would end.

Later, when I was awaken and was back to "reality", I still had that urge. I had no understanding that things would get better. That the doctors had saved my life after 3 weeks of fighting for me, and that the plan now was to strengthen my body so I could eventually leave the hospital.

Now... when I left the hospital, and when I started becoming stronger, and even more now, I would never take my own life.

My life is a privilege. I should have been dead last summer. I have the word from my doctors. They told my mother "you will not see your soon awake again". But here I am. So no. Suicide is not something I am contemplating.

Are you? and if so, why do you think that is?

Glad to hear things are improving for you! As someone who has recently gotten a diagnosis I wonder: Were you able to keep a positive and "solution" minded attitude through it all? Or is it bad days/good days?

For me, I went through some phases in general. When I got out of the hospital and started treatment, I had a breakdown. I was just in my bed, often crying and yelling out. "I am not ready to die!", "I have so much I want to do!". Thats when it really struck me that this cancer, fucked up as the situation was, would probably be my death at some point.

I still think it will. Hopefully in many years, and of course I hope I will be wrong, but I must admit, I have come to terms with it.

The way I see it... I have realized how great sensations I can experience even when I have this faceless monster inside me, just killing me without any purpose. I have accepted that I will not always be happy going through this, but it has given me the ability to not be afraid of being afraid.

I dont know if it makes sense. Sometimes when you are afraid, or sad, you feel as if you will never be un-afraid, or un-sad again. But if you realize how much of a lie that is, then being afraid or sad isnt that scary after all.

I have never been happier than I am now, and I have cancer. Its something I have progressively realized was the case during the last year of my life, but its true.

May I ask what kind of situation you are in?