Storytime with Rachel F Hundred

When life forces you to think about the worst-case scenario.

Content warning for discussion of cancer.

At the end of April, I went for a routine breast screening. It was not the first time that I had undertaken a mammogram as I had been offered one as part of a private health check on joining a previous organisation years before and taken that up. But I have now reached that age where I start to get sent for regular screening and this was my first invitation to that.

So, just before I started my new contract, I headed off to a local hospital and had the mammogram. It is not a comfortable procedure. It is awkward and painful – momentarily painful but still painful because a part of your anatomy to be clamped to enable a clear picture to be taken. I tell myself that it is worth a moment’s pain to get checked out.

About the middle of May I got a request to attend a routine follow-up at the beginning of June. As there had been issues with getting a picture of my left side, I figured that was probably the reason. However, as I went to check-in online for the appointment, I realised they had also lined up a biopsy.

‘Nothing to worry about,’ I told myself sternly. ‘It’s routine. There’s likely nothing. They’re just doing due diligence to check. We have a history of cancer but not actually breast cancer in the family.’

(My mother died of liver cancer after going undiagnosed with a cancerous tumour in her colon. That followed, decades after she’d undergone a hysterectomy as a solution to severe fibroids where they’d found pre-cancerous cells. Given that, I’m always careful to take up screening and to ensure that I do have private medical insurance to cover cancer treatment if I should need it (the NHS in the UK is brilliant but the private cover gives me reassurance on a speedy treatment)).

I took a deep breath and headed off to spend a whole four and a half hours at the hospital where I underwent another mammogram, an ultrasound, and a biopsy. I left with a bulky dressing over the small incision and the feeling of being totally wrung out by the experience. I was given my follow-up appointment for the following week.

The good news is that the follow-up appointment confirmed that the cyst they’d found was completely benign and everything is fine. (I should keep checking myself, immediately act on finding anything unusual by going back to the doctor, and always attend my mammogram screenings just like everyone else).

But between the biopsy and the follow-up?

It was a very stressful week of waiting for the results. Regardless of how much I tried to push it to the back of my mind, the notion of ‘what if’ lurked. It was the unwelcome guest outstaying their welcome. A looming raincloud in an otherwise sunny sky.

‘What if…’ my fears whispered to me every quiet moment, ‘what if…’

I’m trained to think about the worst-case scenario so that is what I did. The worst case was that it would be bad news and I would have been diagnosed with cancer. The reality is that I would be facing treatment and fighting for my health in a very different way to the daily battle that I do with my current chronic illnesses. I would likely have to reprioritise again what I would want to focus my time and attention upon work-wise and in my writing.

There was a part of me which just went ‘well, obviously we’ll resign and focus on treatment, spending time with loved ones, and writing because that is all that would be important.’

Which is when I realised in a fundamental way that I had not before that professionally I really want my legacy to be my writing.

Nothing like a worst-case scenario to bring what you want to leave behind into stark relief.

Some may ask why I had not already realised that given I’ve spent the past year changing my life to focus on writing and to make it a priority. I have a novel written and ready to go! The truth is that I had never thought about it in that context before.

I’ve done a lot of good things in my professional life to date. Most importantly, I’ve developed and mentored people in their careers making a different to their lives. I’ve helped organisations with changes that have mattered to the difference they make to people. The work I’m doing now will help a great organisation reorganise itself, improving its service and hopefully increasing its impact into vital work for our society as a whole.

These are all things of which I am proud and pleased to have contributed towards. I have made a difference. Small and not shouted about in many circles, but a difference nevertheless.

Yet when I thought I might have a shorter time on Earth than I hope to have, writing is the one activity I knew I wanted to do without question, over and above everything else.

It has definitely underlined my desire to get this first novel published.

A part of me has been stalling on it, procrastinating, dare I say even dithering.

Even though the characters are already out in the world through my short story series, putting the novel out is a different kind of leap into the unknown. It is scary.

The worst-case scenario for the novel is that I put it out and nobody buys it, nobody reads it. It goes unloved and unwanted by any audience. It is the same worst-case scenario for any story.

Sometimes you have to just take the leap and hope. Maybe it will find an audience, maybe it won’t. Maybe people will like it, maybe they won’t. Sometimes creative work is only discovered years after its initial publication. Sometimes it is discovered long after the creator has left this earth.

Every time I put a story, a review, a poem, or even this writer’s log out there in the world, I take the same risk of that worst-case scenario. There are fanfics that I’ve written in popular fandoms where I have very few views, comments, and reviews. It happens. My reviews do tend to get very little engagement but I enjoy doing them so I continue to do them when I can.

The point of creating about writing for me in many, many ways is not about the audience. It is not about whether people like it or not. It is about the stories which I want to tell, the characters I bring to life, and their trials and tribulations. It is about having a voice about another piece of art that is in the world and sharing my thoughts. Or sharing the experience of changing of my life to focus on something that makes me incredibly happy.

I just need to tell myself about the novel what I tell myself every time I press ‘Publish’ on a post here – that maybe nobody reads what I’ve written and that is OK. The joy is in writing it in the first place; in creating it in the first place.

End Note: Please like, comment or share if you enjoyed this writer’s log! If you would like to buy me a coffee in support of my original writing, check out my Ko-fi or my subscription/donation page.