needed people away just when you need them most. But if you recognize your anger for what it is, you will be getting your mental attitude set to cope with it.
It's important to let your anger out. Talk about it. Scream. Punch a pillow or throw things around—anything to help release anger's hold on you. Then work to apply that energy in a positive and useful direction. Tell the world you just ain't ready to go, and put your anger to work to make sure you don't have to.
Coming to Terms with Fear Most people hear the word cancer and immediately think of suffering, prolonged disability or the phrase "nothing can be done." These responses may be okay for the movies, but except in unusual circumstances they don't have a lot to do with the reality of cancer treatment today. Something can almost always be done. Pain and other side effects of treatment can be controlled. Disability is not inevitable. Most people are surprised to learn that their ideas about cancer are much more pessimistic than the facts warrant.
But no one with cancer has any experience or training in how to deal with the sometimes scary events that happen day to day, week to week or month to month. Even if the surgeon "got it all out" or the radiation or chemotherapy seems to be working, there is always a fear that the cancer will come back.
Fear is a terrible master if you let it get a grip on your life. You can be literally "frightened to death." It is a documented phenomenon in modern medical practice that people who accept a cancer diagnosis as a death sentence can die quite quickly, long before the disease has progressed far enough to cause death by itself.
