The Man Demon

They say it’s in the spine now.

The oncologist used longer words, but I stopped listening after “metastasised.” He said it gently — with the practiced sorrow of someone who delivers small deaths for a living. I nodded like a man being told the rain will fall again tomorrow.

Later, alone in the car, I googled the translation. Advanced. Incurable. Progressive. I read it six times. It didn’t help.

I want to tell you I felt fear. That it surged up and made me vow to live differently. But it wasn’t fear. It was shame — dense and immediate, as if I’d been caught cheating in a game I didn’t realise I’d been playing so badly.

Because of course I knew. Of course I fricking knew.

The nightly pisses that went from once to twice to four times. The dull ache low in my back I blamed on the office chair. The stream that lost its arc, the sex that lost its heat. The silent, slow slipping. Two decades of sub-health — brushed off, laughed off, drunk off.

I told myself I was fine. Tired, older, busy. A man.
We wear decline like a badge. “Still working,” we say. “Still driving.”
As though competence were proof of health. As though function meant immunity.

And now I’m here.
Not dying yet — just dissolving.
Cell by cell. Man by man.

What kills me isn’t the cancer. It’s the knowing — how long I ignored the whispers. How eagerly I let them become white noise. I wore my symptoms like secrets. Not just from others. From myself.

I remember a day, maybe thirteen years ago.
Standing at a urinal, counting the seconds it took to start. Thirteen. Then sixteen.
I joked about it to a mate — called it “middle-aged splashdown.”
He laughed. We all laughed.
Men joke to pretend things are temporary.

But time was already peeling me. Quietly. Systematically.

I had opportunities. Physicals missed. Bloods skipped.
A GP I ghosted after she raised the possibility.
“Just stress,” I told her.
She looked at me the way doctors do when they already know they won’t see you again.

I want to say I regret it. But regret feels too soft.
I resent it — the arrogance, the laziness, the way I refused to imagine a future where I wasn’t fine.
What do you call a man who walks willingly into his own unravelling?

I call him me.

I watch myself now. In mirrors. In clinic reflections.
I look for signs of who I was.
It’s not just the body that’s thinning — it’s the premise of me.
What am I without denial? What do I believe in, when belief didn’t save me?

This is what metastatic cancer feels like:
not just invasion, but erasure.
Not just dying, but being rewritten in reverse.
You start as a man and end as a case study —
a caution, a grief-shaped hole in the lives of those who still believe early means lucky.

I wish I could end this with grace. With hope.
But I don’t want to sell you lies.
The only thing I have left is honesty.

Early is not just a number on a scan.
It’s a decision — to stop mistaking survival for strength.

If you’re reading this and your body has been trying to talk to you — listen.
The man demon doesn’t arrive with a roar.
He waits. He whispers.
He makes a home of you, cell by cell,
until one day someone tells you he’s already won.

–––

These stories aren’t rare.
They’re just rarely told early enough.
Most decline begins in silence —
a skipped check-up, a cough you dismiss, a breath you pretend is fine.

He didn’t need saving.
Just a warning sooner.

––– Pause Here –––

If this feels familiar, you’re not alone.
Most illness doesn’t start with a bang.
It starts when silence becomes habit.

Lingzhi isn’t a miracle.
It’s a habit.
A quiet, daily way to care for the body —
before silence becomes suffering.

Lingzhi is a traditional food taken to support general well-being. It is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. For personalised advice, please consult a qualified healthcare practitioner.

#SubHealthStories #HealthIsAHabit #HappyHealthyLingzhi