Demons

Demons, these are the little thoughts that haunt you, they are the thoughts that drift into your mind during moments of inactivity and somehow manage to plant a seed of thought that slowly spreads, just like a tumor, until it is all you can think about. These thoughts then tend to haunt you, until you either manage to wrestle the thought into submission or you drive yourself mad .The hard part about it is that the thought gets more and more invasive. It starts as a quick glimmer or figment of your imagination, and by the end it can be an all consuming mass that draws you in like a black hole. You hear from the doctors that these moments will happen and that these types of things are common, and that they throw statistics at you that are aimed at alleviating the madness that can quickly take you. The doctors also warn you that  inevitably, no matter how strong you are, you will think about the dark, scary moments in which you question your existence and how long you'll be around for. My advice would be that no matter how dark and scary, as long as you're alive, you're fighting, and that the only statistic that matters is you and how much of a percentage of your mind is focused on beating this thing.


I used to think of demons as completely different things, they were the "scary" flashback I would have on a Sunday afternoon when looking back at my weekend, the demons would haunt my thoughts and I would cringe to think about my inane exploits. The demons I have been experiencing lately are a very different animal, and a lot more serious. For those of you reading this blog who have had some form of cancer, you will know about these demons... the ones that wake you up in the middle of the night, in a cold sweat, and once the idea has been processed, your mind begins to run, it breaks down the idea into every conceivable scenario and tries to apply it to your current status and situation. My "demons" in the beginning of this whole thing were very different from what they are now, I write that off to ignorance and not really understanding what the doctors were talking about.

I do recall that I had no idea what the difference between malignant and benign were, all I really cared about was whether this thing was going to kill me... because invariably that is all we really care about. Once that question gets answered we have a steering point or a buoy to hold on to. Once the doctor said, "if you leave it, you die", I had a pretty good steering point. I knew that I would be able to beat it so long as it came out, I was not phased with how I was going to get it out because that was not an option. The demons during that initial phase were perhaps likened to an uneducated child, brash and without direction. But slowly as I have plodded along my journey to recovery I have began to absorb information. I love information, and the incredible power it holds... my only wish would be that if I could absorb so much information that it would squash my tumor, alas. I was also very apprehensive about information, because I also know the allure of the internet and peoples need to run to it if there is something we are unsure of. I confess I have done this in the past, I was even given the name "Google" or "Funfact Woodley", as I would resort to the search engine if there was anything I was unsure of.

As soon as I learned about my tumor, my immediate reaction was to Google "Pineal tumor". That would have been unwise, and I suggest that none of the readers of this blog go against my wishes. It is not only because there is a lot of false information out there, but it is also harmful information, that can be misleading and will serve no purpose. Rather peak to someone who is an authority on the matter. I also believe it was wise to never research brain tumors and pineal tumors because I would then have been given information that I needed to hear from a professor of nuerosurgery, because Professor Harsh informed me that of all the brain tumors in the pineal region, I have one that accounts for between 1 and 4%. If I had read that on some website, or wikipedia, I surely would have crumbled like a house of cards, the armour that my parents speak of would have been dented before the battle had begun, and my mountain would have seemed to steep an angle to climb.

The Demons will always be in the back of my mind, tomorrow I have my first appointment with my Radiation Oncologists at Harley Street Clinic. I am apprehensive, I know that yet again they are going to be throwing all the hard facts at me, that I have a malignant cancer in the middle of my brain, and that they were successful in removing 70% of it, and that the remaining 30% has developed fronds, which means it has dug into the wall of my 3rd ventricle. Prof. Harsh tried to remove it during surgery but as they were trying to remove it, my motor function on my left hand side began to decrease, and for a few hours the doctors were unsure whether I would have full function on my left hand side. These are the risks we take, I would undergo that surgery again so long as it yielded the same results. Hindsight is scary, just as demons are, because I shudder to think what could have happened. I could never have woken up, and I wouldnt have known the difference.

Those minutes that I lay on the operating table before surgery were the most humbling of my life, and only a few people will be able to empathize with this, because only a few people have been in a situation where they readily accept death in order to be able to live, and get better. I will never be able to explain the pure and raw emotion I felt, I realized that those last few minutes could be my last and that I may never see my loved ones again. Now that its all over, the demons are the things that haunt me. I wake up at least once a night, and I lie there thinking about whether they got enough of the tumor out, and whether the doctors are going to throw another curve ball at me during the appointment tomorrow. I am slowly learning the incredible power of my mind, and the need to control my thoughts and emotions. I still have never cried about this cancer, not because it shows weakness, because it doesn't. I haven't cried because I am scared to release the emotion and fear that resides in me, and in apprehension of what else it will unlock.

The demons I am talking about have the power to make you recall the scariest moments of your fight, and they make you shudder to think of the devastating consequences of your actions or decisions. You realize what you could have lost in your attempt to gain more, they are the thoughts that stir your deepest and most personal realizations.

I am not a super hero, I feel pain and I scare just the same as the next. When you get hammered with reams of information we all look for a beacon that will help pull us out of the darkness, we all have our vices, and we all need the people around us. My support system has pulled me through this, people forget that I am not here alone, I have my family, loved ones and friends here that have been a source of inspiration and strength. Just as they have been a source so has everyone back home, and I will never forget the incredible love I have been shown. Thank you to everyone. We all forget the incredible strength and importance of those two words and how misconstrued they have become. From the bottom of my heart, Thank You to Everyone.


We all experience Demons, and we all have our own personal demons, with each one providing minutes or hours of panic, where they fester, like a sore until they become infected.  I have experienced my fair share lately, and they seemed bigger than monoliths at certain stages of this fight. Then I realized that these thoughts are there to test you, they are designed to test the mental fortitude of your mind, and in a battle like mine, only the strongest mentally survive. If I continue to let these little thoughts gather momentum, in the end I will be surrounded by thoughts that harbor no positivity and emit negativity like the sun emits light. It will be all consuming, and with devastating repercussions.


So when you  hear the voice of your demons tinkering around in the back of your mind, in the most important vessel  of thought to yourself, you have to accept that these demons will play inconceivable games against you, it will use your fears, phobias and insecurities to try gain an advantage over you. The blow can be physically felt, your heart quickens, and your breath shortens. This panic is only developed as a consequence of your demons.

In the end, just remember that no combination of single thoughts is stronger than the collective power of the thoughts of your mind. I am still wrestling my demons, every day, but every small battle won, I get closer to winning this perpetual war that is fought in the realm of the mind.