It is now Day 3 of being jobless. And it is Day 5 of a continuing headache.

I recall the last time I was unemployed. Although I had thought I was pretty calm and stoic about the whole thing, that there was not a single day when I had not woken with a sense of panic. I realised this only when, after six months in China, I woke up without a sense of panic, of having to rush to the computer to check email, worry at something, and wondered what was different. Then I realised...no more panic.

Well, today is Day 3 of panic. In fact, I hyperventilate when I wake up now.

They say that if cancer is incipient, certain pivotal life events could trigger the growth of the malignant cells. Events such has moving house (check), losing a loved one (check), losing a job (check), starting a new jon (check), moving countries (check). The stress from these suppresses our immune system so that our bodies are unable to fight the cancer.

I read something else rather interesting a few days ago - that people who are considered 'difficult', tend to be the ones with a longer survival period post-diagnosis. Why? They are fighters, they do not take crap lying down and do not bottle things up. The expression of feelings contributes to a healthy immune system.

I am one of those people, but all my life, as a female, I am told that I should not be. I should shut up, grin and bear it. So what if the cab driver is stupid, goes from Serangoon Avenue to Little India, Lavender Street, Kampong Bahru, Beach Road, Nicoll Highway to my destination in Shenton Way. My mother, the arbiter of all things lady-like, would tell me I should shut up and pay up. Instead of which, I am screaming at the idiot cab driver.

She has advanced osteoporosis. But when the taxi driver was unwilling to help us with my luggage when I came back from the hospital, she was hefting it like the best of coolies. I scolded the the driver - she told me to keep quiet. Does not the driver really deserve to get shouted at? And have his license taken away, for letting a 75 year old woman and someone in bandages coming home from the hospital where he picked us up, get their own luggage out of the boot?

I was just laid off - quite unexepectedly since I was given to understand when I was diagnosed that I would not have to fear for my job. When I was booted off the global project I was given with no reason from my boss, I checked again with a VP in the company - no, he said , it will have no effect on your professional standing. I kept quiet and believed. And even as recently as last week, the boss told me to not attend the HR meeting, to come back to Shanghai. Just the day before the HR meeting, he sent me an email with an instruction to work on some documents. Talk about a false sense of security. I will leave the judgement of such a person to you, Dear Reader.

The retrenchment conversation was entirely civilised - but now I am seething, and I imagine several deliciously painful forms of torture for my manager - for they would not have retrenched me without his agreement. Indeed, he would have had to recommend that I be the one axed.

My mother gets up at 8am. How do I know this? Because the TV is switched on promptly at that time. For the past 9 months, I have been saying to her that I can hear the bloody thing through the walls - she is deaf (although maintains she is not) and needs to blast it. Nine bloody months. Has it sunk in? Just what does it take?

I woke up today with the familiar sense of panic, then on hearing the TV, a sense of rage. How often do I have to say it? I am not getting enough sleep and I feel tired by 5pm, but I go for a jog, then am briefly energised. By the the time 10pm comes I am tired, but then the worry sets in and I cannot sleep. I drop off at 2am-ish only to be awakened by the boom-boom-boom from the living room a scant six hours later, when I need at least 7.5 hours of sleep because of the medication I take.

What was it today? The sports news. Does my mother even know what sport is? No. It is just white noise. I felt like smashing the TV clicker today. What did I do instead? Basically, what I have done for the past 9 months - I quietly asked her to turn the TV down.

The worry, the lack of sleep, etc, the effort to keep it all in, and continue to be 'positive'. I feel that the company has signed my death warrant. The worry is involuntary. How can I help it? Each time the tiredness comes upon me, I wonder - is this it?

My brother says God is looking out for me because I need to rest. Well, what would give me rest is a sense of financial security and some quiet. And that is something that God does not seem willing to give me.