Joining Club Paranoia - 50 Days of Hope

Joining Club Paranoia

Have you noticed that when you joined the select group known as Cancer Survivors, you also got an unwanted membership in another group? I call it Club Paranoia.

This is the place where you feel nervous ignoring things that you never would have worried about before.

Where a dull headache might be a brain tumor.

Where a tiny old-age spot could be melanoma.

Where indigestion is possibly stomach cancer.

Where a backache surely is bone metastases.

Where lumps, bumps, aches, and pains seem much more pronounced right before your next checkup and much less right afterward!

One reason cancer survivors are so paranoid is because once our bodies have betrayed us, it’s hard to trust them again. When I was diagnosed with cancer, I looked fine and felt fine. I certainly couldn’t imagine I had a life-threatening illness. I thought that people with cancer would look sick or at least feel sick.

My theory in life used to be if you’re not bleeding profusely or in terrible pain, you’re okay. My parents, especially my father, who coached sports, always told me to “shake it off” if I got hurt as I was growing up. And that’s what I continued to do as an adult.

So I have a little occasional blood in the stool. Probably an old hemorrhoid. I feel fine. Shake it off, I told myself. So my bowels are occasionally a little different. Probably something I ate. I look fine. Shake it off.

And that’s what I did . . . for a year and a half. Both my family doctor (make that ex-doctor) and I ignored symptoms that I now know suggest cancer.

Perhaps you did the same. You ignored a warning sign or your doctor didn’t seem too concerned about it, so you didn’t bother with any tests. And now you want to make sure you never make that mistake again.

Welcome to Club Paranoia.

A few years ago I had a little mole on my shin, which looked nothing like any picture of skin cancer I’ve seen (and believe me, I compared it to all of them). I showed it to two physicians and an oncology nurse—all of whom told me it did not look suspicious. Still, I made an appointment with a dermatologist to have it removed because it appeared suddenly and made me nervous. (It didn’t help that my neighbor Sharon, much younger than I am, had a little mole on her leg, which also didn’t look suspicious but turned out to be melanoma.)

Even if you were a hypochondriac before the cancer diagnosis, you’re probably going to be a little more paranoid about the disease now. I have yet to meet a survivor who doesn’t admit to at least some degree of irrational fear. I think cancer survivors and their loved ones should be suspicious and distrustful of cancer. It’s a very sneaky disease and we are wise not to let down our guard when it comes to our health. That makes us smart, not paranoid.

It’s the irrational fears we need to avoid. And we do that by being rational—by telling ourselves the truth about fears.

Most headaches are not brain tumors.

Most backaches are not cancer in our bones.

Most of the people diagnosed with cancer today can expect to still be alive five years from now.

Most cancer survivors are at least a little paranoid, and you’re not crazy if you are too!

The truth is that while cancer cannot be trusted, God can.

Let us hold tightly without wavering to the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to keep his promise.

Hebrews 10:23

Trust in the LORD with all your heart;

do not depend on your own understanding.

Proverbs 3:5

I prayed to the LORD, and he answered me,

freeing me from all my fears. . . .

I cried out to the LORD in my suffering, and he heard me.

He set me free from all my fears.

Psalm 34:4, 6

You may not be able to completely cancel your membership in Club Paranoia, but you don’t have to be a card-carrying member every day! (By the way, remember that little mole on my shin? The dermatologist removed it, and $184 later I found out it was not cancer. Did I mention that paranoia can be very expensive?)

Lord, I don’t want to live a paranoid life, afraid that cancer is lurking around every corner. Please free me from this fear and help me trust in Your promises. I pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.