Hope over shadow
Being back on Ward 45 last week triggered something deep and familiar. The corridors were exactly as I remembered; long, softly lit, smelling faintly of sanitiser and quiet worry. These are the same corridors I paced while waiting to be allowed into Critical Care, the same ones Emma slowly navigated after her life-saving, life-changing surgery.
There’s a strange stillness to hospitals; shadowless light, visitors exchanging furtive glances, everyone wishing for a return to a normal life. It feels a world away from the bright-eyed optimism of only a few weeks ago, when we wandered Bergamo’s narrow streets bathed in a golden autumn sun, full of relief, hope and normality.
When we returned home, a letter was waiting. An appointment with Emma’s oncologist. The holiday stopped abruptly, replaced by that familiar, anxious current.
Smash cut to a small side room where he told us the scan had detected two enlarged lymph nodes in Emma’s groin. Our hearts sank. It could be nothing; her lymphatic system still finding its rhythm, still responding to all the trauma of her surgery. Or it could be something else. A biopsy of both nodes is the only way to know. And that is happening as I type this post.
Six months after her operation, three months after being told she was all clear, we find ourselves, once again, floating in that strange, slow tide of uncertainty. The waiting is its own kind of trial; a limbo between knowing and not, where every imagined outcome flickers like shadows on a wall.
Plato’s allegory of the cave keeps coming to mind. In his story, prisoners mistake the shadows for reality, never realising there’s a world of light beyond the walls. Fear works like that, casting imaginary shapes, worst-case scenarios, hypothetical futures, and we sit transfixed, mistaking them for truth. Step outside, though, and the light changes everything.
So I do what I always do: try to keep us both in the light. I tell Emma (and myself) that worrying about what’s to come won’t change what’s already in motion. The present moment is what we have.
Lately, I’ve been guided by Henry Shukman’s The Way app, short meditations that remind me to stay present, to sit with fear rather than run from it. Zen teaches that peace isn’t found by pushing thoughts away but by letting them pass like weather across a wide sky. The practice doesn’t erase worry, but it softens its hold. It’s like sitting beside the bin fire instead of inside it.
For now, we wait. I’m deeply grateful that the system works, that the surveillinace scans catch what our eyes can’t, that biopsies can be arranged within days. And yet, beneath the gratitude, there’s still that familiar fear. Whatever the results, whatever comes next, we’ll meet it as we always have; choosing hope over shadow.