South Wales East Assembly Member Steffan Lewis has spoken about his battle with cancer.
The 33-year-old Plaid Cymru politician, who has a two-year-old son, was diagnosed in December last year with stage-four bowel cancer.
Speaking to BBC Wales recently, the Newbridge-based AM said he had learned it was okay to be frightened as he prepares to undergo 12 weeks of chemotherapy.
He said: “When we were told the diagnosis, I almost had an out of body experience as if the consultant wasn’t talking about me. This was somebody else they were talking about and none of it was very real.
“Embracing all your emotions is very important. There’s a big emphasis, rightly, put on positivity when you are faced with cancer in particular, and that’s absolutely right and I’m positive generally.
“But there’s nothing negative about allowing yourself to explore and to even indulge other emotions, and one of the things I’ve learned actually in the last couple of months is that it is okay to be frightened.”
Mr Lewis, who was elected in 2016, also spoke about the loss of dignity cancer can bring.
He said: “When I was in the Gwent hospital over Christmas it was the first instance that the cancer had taken my dignity from me.
“I was lying in bed, just had a bowel operation and of course when you have a bowel operation there are implications for the control that you have over your bowel movements and so on, and I remember the nurse leaving – they call them pads but they are effectively adult nappies – on my bedside cabinet in the hospital ward and she went out of the room and I remember just lying there and bursting into tears.
“That was the first time the cancer had struck at my dignity.”
Mr Lewis said he drew strength from his family.
He said: “There is something that I cling on to which is we’ve got a beautiful two-and-a-half-year-old boy and I want to see him grow into a beautiful adult.
“And when I get the tough times that’s what I think about,and he just lights up my days, keeps me going and that’s something that’s a really good motivator.”