{"id":26673,"date":"2025-04-26T09:01:42","date_gmt":"2025-04-26T09:01:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=26673"},"modified":"2025-04-26T09:24:51","modified_gmt":"2025-04-26T09:24:51","slug":"what-facing-cancer-taught-me-about-fear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=26673","title":{"rendered":"What Facing Cancer Taught Me About Fear"},"content":{"rendered":"
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There\u2019s something on the other side.<\/p>\n

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To say I was afraid of mice is to put it mildly.<\/p>\n

I was terrified, not only of how they looked and the way they scuttled along a baseboard but also of what they portended. This began in 2011, when, after months of failing health, I spent a week in a hospital in Paris, where I lived. Doctors ran countless tests but found nothing conclusive.<\/p>\n

Eventually, they diagnosed me with burnout and sent me home.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t a satisfying explanation. I felt better while in the hospital, but that was because of prednisone, an ordinary steroid. As it wore off, I deteriorated again.<\/p>\n

For days I lay in bed, growing weaker and feeling a creeping unease. At the same time, I began to hear scurrying in the kitchen. I hadn\u2019t cleaned up before my unexpected hospitalization, and I began imagining mice multiplying inside the cabinets.<\/p>\n

I asked my boyfriend at the time if he heard anything, but he hadn\u2019t. I worried I was losing my grip on reality.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Several days passed, and I was still in bed. My skin was pallid, and lesions covered the inside of my mouth. \u201cSomething\u2019s seriously wrong,\u201d my boyfriend said. \u201cWe need to go to the E.R.\u201d<\/p>\n

So I dragged myself to the hospital, where tests revealed that my blood counts had plummeted. The doctor recommended I return home to New York immediately. We went back to the apartment, and I packed my suitcase. Afterward, I climbed into bed, terrified and exhausted, yearning for the oblivion of sleep.<\/p>\n

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There\u2019s something on the other side.To say I was afraid of mice is to put it mildly.I was terrified, not only of how they looked and the way they scuttled along a baseboard but also of what they portended. This began in 2011, when, after months of failing health, I spent a week in a hospital in Paris, where I lived. Doctors ran countless tests but found nothing conclusive.Eventually, they diagnosed me with burnout and sent me home.It wasn\u2019t a satisfying explanation. I felt better while in the hospital, but that was because of prednisone, an ordinary steroid. As it wore off, I deteriorated again.For days I lay in bed, growing weaker and feeling a creeping unease. At the same time, I began to hear scurrying in the kitchen. I hadn\u2019t cleaned up before my unexpected hospitalization, and I began imagining mice multiplying inside the cabinets.I asked my boyfriend at the time if he heard anything, but he hadn\u2019t. I worried I was losing my grip on reality.Several days passed, and I was still in bed. My skin was pallid, and lesions covered the inside of my mouth. \u201cSomething\u2019s seriously wrong,\u201d my boyfriend said. \u201cWe need to go to the E.R.\u201dSo I dragged myself to the hospital, where tests revealed that my blood counts had plummeted. The doctor recommended I return home to New York immediately. We went back to the apartment, and I packed my suitcase. Afterward, I climbed into bed, terrified and exhausted, yearning for the oblivion of sleep.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26675,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26673","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26673"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26673\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26676,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26673\/revisions\/26676"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/26675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}