I am one of the nine per cent of Britons who think about death at least once a day.

According to YouGov Death Study research, 20 per cent of us think about death several times during the week while seven per cent say they think about it less than once a year.  Four per cent say they never think about death. Granted the research was conducted during the pandemic when thoughts of mortality were triggered by regular Government briefings on how to keep safe or more ominously, by the daily tolls of those who had died from Covid-19.

My preoccupation with mortality started when my oncologist described the nature of the cancer that had started to colonise my airways earlier this year. Like so many medics, he chose a military metaphor to describe the nature of the ‘enemy’ within. It was aggressive, unpredictable with no noticeable weaknesses. It could not be cured. At best, the treatment he proposed would keep it at bay, hopefully prolonging my life.

I signed his consent forms, shuddering a little at the exhaustive list of side-effects from the chemo and immunotherapy treatment he proposed and left his office to prepare for battle. I had little idea what my role in this ‘fight’ might take, save my willingness to submit stoically to treatment and to sustain the side-effects of extreme fatigue, anorexia, hair loss and nausea. And those who had ‘lost their brave fight’ with cancer (according to the eulogies), what had they failed to do?

“It’s important that you keep your spirits up,” the oncologist insisted though he didn’t specify why my morale might affect the treatment outcome. Would a pessimistic or fatalistic attitude somehow embolden the tumour?  (I’m assured by cancer patient and surgeon Dr Liz O’Riordan, scourge of quackery, that toxic thoughts and stress do not cause cancer ‘despite what functional, integrative and naturopathic doctors might say’).

I suspect that a cheery and uncomplaining demeanour is all the armoury required of the cancer patient since the ‘war’ is principally waged between medical science (with the oncologist as general) and the cancer.

My poor body becomes the battleground.  Some commentators have noticed that the military metaphor routinely used by oncologists has led to some cancer patients feeling fatalistic and passive about their treatment. I think I know what they mean.  I notice how willingly I step into line with the routines of treatment which seem to lull me into a state of security.

Then there is my wide-eyed faith in those who care for me… I am in awe of my oncologist, a tiny, intense man who seems unable to move or speak in a leisurely way.  I wonder if a career spent trying to keep ahead of the trickiest of foes has somehow contributed to his demeanour.  I am in awe too of the nurses who administer the chemo on a cul-de-sac of a ward lined with wingback chairs. Their good-natured calm contrasts with my oncologist’s twitchiness and, indeed, seems to soothe the troubled souls who are surrendering to these strange infusions to grasp whatever life is possible.

I think of this small community of cancer patients, of which I am a reluctant member, as the ‘incurables.’ We share a taste for flamboyant headgear, dietary obsessions designed to tempt impaired taste buds and grim humour.

My uncritical gratitude towards the medical staff has, it seems, diminished my curiosity.

I take pride in my stoic approach to the phlebotomist’s blood-taking, my cheery cooperation on the chemo ward (I try a little too hard to make the nurses laugh).  I attend all my between-treatment appointments without fail and diligently comply with my oncology nurse’s suggestions on diet and exercise.

This is the fawning behaviour of a frightened child whose only resource is to make her caregivers care enough. “Just keep your colouring inside the lines and you’ll be fine.”

Except I’m not fine.  More than at any time in my life I am sensing the worm at the core.  My cancer has elevated background death thoughts to the foreground of my daily life. I am now engaged in what I imagine will be ceaseless struggle between death anxiety and death repression – between terror and denial.

You might say that intimations of mortality are entirely in keeping with advancing years. Prior to my cancer diagnosis, I had devoted precisely no thought to the challenges of my third act. I was in good health, running a business well into my sixties with no plans to retire. But when I reflect on the state of health of my family and friends’ peer group – those in their late 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s – all are dealing with at least one chronic illness: heart disease, type two diabetes, osteoarthritis, hypertension, cognitive decline.

My incurable cancer has cast a deeper shadow of mortality than any of these chronic illnesses could. Cancer has a special status, it seems, and a unique ability to instil fear amongst those who confront it. No wonder it is still spoken of in hushed tones. It is still the ‘big C’ despite improving survival rates.

Other chronic conditions can be ‘managed’ with drugs, lifestyle changes and sometimes surgery, but in each case, they seem to follow a more predictable trajectory, a dance where the steps are known. Cancer, on the other hand, seems to defy choreography. It is freestyle, moving where it will, with one end in view – to survive at my expense.

“To confront cancer is to encounter a parallel species, one perhaps more adapted to survival than even we are.”  Siddhartha Mukherjee, The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer.

To be in thrall to an incurable cancer is to participate in a dance with death. It is time for me to become acquainted with my partner.