My thyroid cancer arrived by accident, in the way life-changing things sometimes do. In May of this year, I went for an upright MRI for a minor injury on my arm, and the scan happened to catch the mass in my neck. By the following month, I had a\u00a0diagnosis. People kept telling me it was \u201cthe good cancer\u201d, the kind that can be taken out neatly and has a high survival rate. But I\u2019m 54, and my dad died of cancer in his 50s, so that shadow came down on me hard.<\/p>\n
My eldest son was doing A-levels at\u00a0the time, so we didn\u2019t tell him at first. I felt as if I\u2019d stepped across some\u00a0irreversible Rubicon that you hear about happening to other people, but never imagine will actually come for you.<\/p>\n
After my diagnosis, I retreated. I\u00a0barely left the house. My neck was\u00a0bruised and swollen, as if I\u2019d attempted some sort of gruesome Halloween makeup. I felt peeled-open and humiliated, as though strangers could look straight through my skin. Friends and family stepped up: my brother, who lives hours away, and I had this incredible chat for hours on a park bench in the sunshine. Still, I\u00a0curled inward.<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t until later that summer that my mum managed to coax me out for lunch and a trip to the Whitworth Art Gallery, in Manchester near where I live. There was a JMW Turner<\/a> exhibition on. I knew his name and his work in the way most people do: big ships, sweeping seascapes of blues and golds. The grand stuff of someone else\u2019s life. I didn\u2019t want culture or fresh air or\u00a0anything that required being seen, but I agreed to go to please her.<\/p>\n The exhibition rooms were dark and\u00a0quiet, lined with sepia prints. My mum moved from caption to caption, reading each one carefully. I drifted behind her, barely looking. When you\u2019re waiting for more test results, for\u00a0the next consultant meeting, for someone to tell you whether cancer has threaded itself further into your body, nothing penetrates.<\/p>\n I was about to sneak off to the cafe\u00a0 when one painting stopped me in my\u00a0tracks. The print was Mount St Gothard, from 1808. In it, a pack horse stands on a mountain path, exhausted and pausing to catch its breath, with its head hanging low to the ground. The cargo on its back looks impossible. It was like looking in a mirror.<\/p>\n It felt absurd, recognising myself in\u00a0a horse on a Swiss mountain painted more than 200 years ago. But there I\u00a0was. The horse was me. The overburdened body. The sense of not knowing how much more of the journey there was to go. For the first time in weeks, something cut through the fog. My feelings \u2013 the ones I\u2019d been hiding, managing, downplaying so I didn\u2019t worry everyone else \u2013 had shape.<\/p>\n It was a moment of recognition. I\u00a0had been managing everyone\u2019s expectations around my illness, and seeing the horse gave me permission to let some support in. Yes, being able to sit in misery, darkness and fear was a necessary part of the process for me, but it couldn\u2019t be done for ever.<\/p>\n There\u2019s now a 10-mile tunnel through the mountain in the painting: it takes 14 minutes by car. The horse must have taken hours.<\/p>\n Months later, with two surgeries to fully remove my thyroid completed, and radioactive iodine treatment ahead of me marking my final medical hurdle, I\u2019m finally starting to feel more like myself. I\u2019m back at work, and I\u2019m even ready to pick up the creative bits of life I\u2019d dropped: the DIY; the craft-making; the messier, more joyful things that make me feel alive.<\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t the diagnosis, or the operations, or even the relief of curability of my cancer that marked a\u00a0turning point. It was Turner\u2019s horse. He made it to the top of the mountain carrying all that baggage, and was going to go back down the other side and have that pack taken off. And so will I. Caroline Howarth<\/p>\n Share your cultural awakenings<\/p>\n Share your experiences<\/p>\n You can tell us how a cultural moment has prompted you to make a major life change by filling in the form below or emailing us on\u00a0cultural.awakening@theguardian.com.<\/p>\n Your responses, which can be anonymous, are secure as the form is encrypted and only the Guardian has access to your contributions. We will only use the data you provide us for the purpose of the feature and we will delete any personal data when we no longer require it for this purpose. For alternative ways to get in touch securely please see our tips guide<\/a>.Show more<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"My thyroid cancer arrived by accident, in the way life-changing things sometimes do. 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