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Fear Is Healthy – Panic Is Dangerous
Every new diver I train hears this from me before we ever get wet: fear is healthy, panic is dangerous.
Fear makes you check your air. It makes you stay close to your buddy and plan your dive. Panic is something else. A panicked diver bolts for the surface, grabs whoever is nearest, and drags them under too. I've had to pull a frightened student off my own shoulders underwater. Panic is contagious, and it doesn't care how experienced you are.
Ten years ago, at thirty-nine, I heard the word cancer over the phone in the middle of an airport terminal. Everything I knew about fear and panic suddenly had nothing to do with water.
The full story of that year lives in my memoir. This October I want to talk about what came after. What a decade past that phone call has taught me, and why I still wear a small silver pendant that says Fxck Cancer.
What ten years taught me
Let fear do its job. Before my diagnosis, my mother was already fighting breast cancer, and my father had died of cancer at thirty-nine. I was afraid. That fear is what got me to the mammogram. Listen to it. It's trying to keep you alive.
Stop, breathe, think, act. It's the first thing we teach for trouble underwater, and it's what I did on that airport bench. I didn't scream or freeze. I asked my doctor what to do, changed my flight, and went home to start treatment. Panic wants you to thrash. Calm lets you choose.
Don't wait for convenient timing. The doctor who called me said it plainly: "These cancers don't wait for convenient timing. Every day matters." She meant treatment. I've made it a rule for everything else. The trip. The hard conversation. The idea you keep saving for later.
Science and spirit can sit at the same table. I love crystals. I believe in energy work and in the ocean's power to heal. And when it counted, I chose a double mastectomy and chemotherapy and followed my oncologist's plan. Both are true for me. The stones I make are companions on the path, never a replacement for your doctor.
Say the hard thing out loud. When my hair fell out, I posted the bald photos. Not the brave version. The real one. Strangers wrote back. Hard things get lighter when we stop carrying them in secret.
Keep your hands busy and your body in the water. During infusions I beaded bracelets for my store. Between rounds I swam laps, stiff and slow at first. Making and moving gave me back the pieces of myself that cancer was trying to take.
Let people show up. Two childhood friends flew in from Hungary for my fortieth birthday and filled my kitchen with fresh orange juice, lentil soup and homemade donuts. I used to be the one who handled everything. Now I let people love me in practical ways.
Genes aren't destiny, but they are information. Genetic testing showed I carry the BRCA2 mutation, passed down through my father's line. Knowing changed my choices. Turning forty felt like stepping out from under a shadow my family had lived under for two generations.
Why I wear my story
When my doctor said "the sooner we can fight it," something lit up in my chest. Not hope exactly. Defiance. That's healthy fear with its sleeves rolled up.
The Fxck Cancer jewelry collection holds that feeling. It's half an inch of sterling silver with a message that doesn't ask permission. I wear it, and some days I stack it with the Fxck Cancer Strawberry Quartz bracelet. Strawberry quartz is a soft, warm pink, a gentle stone for emotional healing. I love the contrast: a tender stone carrying a loud message. That's what survivorship feels like to me.
Cancer is one chapter of my life. It isn't the end of the story. Every time I fasten that clasp, I remember the difference between being afraid and being in a panic. One keeps you alive. The other pulls you under.
Who it's for
For you, if you're in treatment right now. For you, if you're five, ten, twenty years out. For the sister, the husband, the friend who sat in the chemo chair beside someone they love.
A portion of every Fxck Cancer piece goes to the Young Survivors Coalition, which supports young women affected by breast cancer. I was one of them. This October, [X%] of every order at Gogh Jewelry Design goes to [charity].
Let your fear work for you
- Book the mammogram you've been putting off. Mine is the reason I'm here.
- Know your family history, on both sides. If cancer runs in your family, ask your doctor about genetic testing. BRCA can come through your father, like mine did.
- If someone you love is in treatment, show up. Bring soup. Sit in the chair. You don't need the right words.
Ten years later, I'm still diving.
With love, Szilvia
My full story is in my memoir, Diving into Dreams, chapters 15 to 17.
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