Now that school and fall are in full swing, I’ve had my first bouts of a cold, cough, etc. Last week, I also experienced some excruciating lower back pain. After consulting with my general practitioner, we concluded that I’d probably strained a muscle while exercising but, initially, I was convinced that I’d developed a tumor. Yep, I thought my cancer had metastasized, overnight, into my lower back. While not everyone who has received an unexpected cancer diagnosis necessarily thinks this way (i.e. in paranoid extremes), my guess is that some of us do. And part of the process of healing after treatment, at least for me, means not jumping to the worst possible conclusion each time some new symptom pops up. I don’t know why it never occurred to me before, but, in the next five years as I’m working toward remission, of course I’m going to get sick. And those (hopefully, minor) illnesses will likely be unrelated to my cancer. This is just something I’ll have to be mindful of moving forward, so I thought I’d note it here.
I drew this cartoon in the thick of my treatment on a particularly rough day. As I recall, I got a flat tire on the way home from radiation, my daughter was being a total pain in the neck, and the cat had vomited all over the rug when I finally made it back to the house. I remember thinking, incredulously, “Wait a minute… Other bad stuff can’t happen right now; I have cancer!” Turns out, it can–and does–happen.
Par example, last week I had planned a family beach trip to, in the words of my surgeon, “relax and enjoy the summer.” But the day before we were scheduled to leave, my husband stepped in a yellow jacket nest while doing yard-work and went into anaphylactic shock. He was rushed to the emergency room in an ambulance and spent the night in the hospital under close observation. It was awful. And, yet again, I was incredulous. Really, universe?!? Does our family not deserve some small reprieve after the world’s shittiest spring? But, as I should well know by now, it’s not really a question of “deserving.” These things are a matter of chance (hence the term, “misfortune”); as far as I can tell, human suffering is meted out unevenly and at random. And there are many people for whom it is much greater, or more dire. My husband is alright, we eventually made it to the beach, and some version of relaxation and enjoyment was had. It was not what I’d envisioned, initially, but we made do.
Sometimes, I taunt myself with the idea of someone out there in the world whose life is one of utter ease, without pain, conflict, illness, or injury, who just hums along without encountering unexpected obstacles, like a train on a greased track. I don’t actually know this person, most likely because she doesn’t exist. We also have a tendency to conceal our individual struggles, perhaps out of a sense of shame, which further promulgates that fantasy–the uninterrupted life of utter ease (or, if it’s more your thing, astounding productivity). Either way, I thought I’d share our recent mishap here to counteract that narrative–to remind myself that, even if it’s slow and squeaky, the train has not derailed. We keep chugging along, and I’m grateful for it .
The past week has been ROUGH. My pain has escalated with each day since radiation ended. Mornings are the worst, but, once I visit what feels like our in-house pharmacy, things improve ever so slightly. That said, I miss not being on a slew of medications. I miss eating normal food. I miss my daughter, who’s spending the week with her grandparents because my doctors warned me that I’d be feeling terrible directly following treatment (and they were right). In short, I miss being a person who’s not dealing with cancer. But, if I have to be someone that is, I’m actually grateful it’s this person. The person writing and sketching and making an effort here and elsewhere. The person who got through it–at least, the first part–with grit, if not grace.
This probably gives you a good sense of where I’m at today. The hours pass at a snail’s pace, but I’m growing accustomed to this. Time is marked mostly by the dosing of different medications, in-between which I sleep or make myself drink something. Monday is a big day, however: my last radiation treatment!
While perusing my radiation packet a few months ago, I saw that a likely side effect of treating the mouth was “thick, ropy saliva.” As with so many other things I read or was told before I began treatment, I laughed (among them, my surgeon warning me that I would probably lose 15-20 lbs.). But here I am in my last week of radiation, with saliva so thick and ropy you could use it to rig a ship. Seeing is believing.
If you haven’t seen the deeply depressing film by Lars von Trier, then this cartoon won’t make much sense. But when my husband said this the other night at dinner, I laughed so hard it hurt.
Well, then 