Dis ease and fear

Let me put it mildly: I feel dis ease about the CT scan this Wednesday. To put it strongly: I am scared sh**less. On Tuesday next I go over the results with my oncologist,
MICHAEL S. GORDON, M.D.

My hope is lung nodule shrinkage and/or kidney tumor shrinkage. What the heck, I hope it's all gone!

My fear is just the opposite, growth and increase. Most likely is no change at all from 3 months ago, which would be good news. The best my chemo drug, Tarceva, has done on my type of cancer cells is to slow or maybe stop the growth. With your help all along, my plan has been to set a record for the effectiveness of this drug.

I do feel great HOPE and with no exceptions, feeling hope is okay to feel. Fear? Now fear does not seem as okay to feel or talk about. Personally I get stuck on, "What really, do I have to fear?" I can only answer that question intellectually and those vague answers have no effect at all on my truth that I feel afraid. I can readily cry over that fear. Mix it with sadness and I can cut loose with a real choking up time.

Others, yes, some of you, have told me I must just have faith and believe in a miraculous cure for my cancer. What, you think fear is a lack of faith? Well, my own head tells me that sometimes, so I really do not need anymore of invalidating my unpleasant emotion. Fear is not a lack of faith. FEAR is an acronym with three explanations:

1. FEAR, f*** everything and run
2. FEAR, false evidence appearing real
3. FEAR, Face Everything and Recover

The opposite of fear is not faith, but rather courage, the courage to feel fear and walk through it anyway. By myself I am not particularly courageous. I get some of it from you, thank you very much. Even more, I get it when I ask, from my God. Courage is a spiritual principle in whatever religion or philosophy I know about. It is given by grace. For me receiving courage is most likely when I ask it to be given. I feel the fear, and I have an endless source of courage. So do you!
Bill