It's Been A While
I've been busy recovering and, to be honest, wasn't sure I had a lot to say.
Chemo ended, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years came and went in rapid succession and I forgot what it feels like to vent my feelings for the world to see.
Had my first three-month follow up which came back clean of any signs of cancer so that's awesome!
What else? Let's start simple...
How Are You?
Good, I suppose. The doctors stopped shooting me full of poison right before Thanksgiving. The holidays came and that doesn't give you a lot of time to think about yourself.
There are a couple important lessons I've been learning:
- Recovery Takes Time, your body has been pretty traumatized;
- My lungs are pretty banged up from the Bleomycin portion of the treatment;
- I still get tired fairly easily, some days more than others (depending on bouts of insomnia);
- Every ache, pain or body anomaly feels like its probably a tumor;
- It difficult for you to associate with other people and vice versa
So, on the one hand, I'm glad treatment is over and was seemingly effective. On the other hand, I'm still healing mentally and physically and it's hard to say how long that may last.
Recovery?
Yes, recovery.
Think about it like this: You found bed-bugs in your basement. When you found them, you realized they had already infested one of your favorite bean bag chairs and you had some suspicion they got into the walls. How do you deal with the situation? Naturally you SET FIRE TO THE BEAN BAG AND BURN DOWN THE BASEMENT UNTIL THERE ARE NO BED BUGS!
Did you kill the invaders? Yeah, probably. Did it destroy one of your prized bean bag chairs? Yup, that's gone. Did it leave some damage to your walls? Oh yeah.
In a lot of ways that's chemo.
It is caustic, it is indiscriminate and it usually gets the job done. It will likely, however, require some rebuilding after. That's where I sit today, I'm rebuilding my body which has been damaged by bed bug tumors and chemo-fire. They generally believe it takes 6 - 8 months to get back to real sense of normalcy.
Okay but, your Lungs... hurt?
Yeah, originally they hurt. That feeling is more dull now, more uncomfortable than painful. One of the chemo drugs, Bleomycin, is particularly toxic to the lungs since that's where the tumors tend to spread. This leaves you with what I like to call "Heavy Lung". The "Bleo" leaves your lungs inflamed and potentially scarred which reduces your overall lung capacity and efficiency.
You can feel deep breaths you usually wouldn't think much about, talking gets more expensive and your activity level with any sort of vigor becomes difficult to maintain. Most people don't seem to notice, but I run out of steam very quickly most times. It is what I imagine wearing a weighted vest during sleep might feel like.
My activity level, as a result, is sometimes limited to short bursts with periodic rests while my lungs scream at me. 10 - 15 minutes on a stationary bike, for example, or pacing during one but not both my conference calls on a particular day. Luckily, this has been slowly subsiding and, should it not go away soon, they'll prescribe an inhaler to help the process along.
So, hey, if you like breathing through a snorkel, then maybe Bleomycin treatment is for you.
Well, at least you're sleeping well?
Oh yeah, I sleep fine most nights. Most nights. WERE YOU NOT PAYING ATTENTION?! Sometimes you get hit with bouts of insomnia of the usual sort, your mind won't stop working. Always thinking about the thing. The thing you'll do tomorrow, the thing you forgot to do today...
The other kind of insomnia, though, is much more insidious. Occasionally I get hit with bouts of "Cancer is everywhere" syndrome.
Tickle in your throat? Cancer.
Stomach ache? Definitely tumors.
That slightly twitchy pain you get in your eye when you can't sleep? Aggressive ocular cancer, obviously.
“Cancer commonly presents as your arm falling asleep under your pillow”
It's not that these are totally irrational, since you're not really "out of the woods" even though you're in remission. It's irrational in the sense that there's no point in thinking that way. Who knows how long my cancer went undiagnosed, seemingly asymptomatic. The fact is -- despite what WebMD would like you to believe -- there are very few obvious signs you might be dealing with cancer.
That just seems to add to the anxiety. That's really the place -- the only place --where the bed bug & fire analogy falls apart. At least bed bugs bite you and leave little marks, cancer doesn't always leave those telltale signs for you as a cancer survivor. It takes follow up (once every three months for the next two years at least), paying attention to your body and trying to keep on the health track.
But you've got people to rely on, right?
Yes. My family, friends and workplace have been great, very supportive. But unless you've gone through it, it's difficult to understand it. Most people tend to think once treatment is over, that's it. You're 100% healthy now. Similar to taking antibiotics to get over the clap and now you can get back out onto the social scene guilt free (thanks for the comparison story, Charles).
Beside the physical trauma your body has gone through, there's a good amount of psychological trauma too. There's ongoing stress and anxiety and not just about cancer or recovery: Will people see me as damaged? Will I ever feel normal again? Why is this Budweiser commercial making me cry? If I don't believe in feelings, why do I have so many?
Of course, I can answer those questions logically: No, Yes, because you're pansy and, because you're a pansy.
I'd be more popular in Europe. Do they have microwaves in Europe?
Logic, however, doesn't seem to always have a place during recovery. I can logically understand the percentage chance of recurrence is very low but that doesn't stop me from irrationally believing the microwave isn't safe to use anymore without wearing a tin foil suit. Rationally I know I don't have to wear a "C" on my chest like some uni-ballin' male version of Hester Prynne [It's okay if you need to google that, I don't expect you to be cultured]. Emotionally, however, it feels like no one will understand anything I'm trying to communicate right now. You get the picture?
So that can make it difficult socially. How do you continue to build relationships with people if you feel like you're on shaking mortal grounds all the time? How do you tolerate another project delay at work when you might have to go on leave again? How do you, god forbid, ask a nice gal out on a date while you're dressed in a tin foil suit?
Those are the sort of questions you ask, whether you want to or not. Do I desperately want to share all of that? Of course. Do I think anyone will understand? Not usually. Does it seem too weighty to share? It's a bit of a buzz kill, yeah.
Yeah, that's.. dark. Are you sure you're okay?
For the most part...? Despite all these doubts, all the challenges, I'm still confident in two things: 1) There is always a process to follow if the worst happens; 2) It can only get better from here.
The ordeal gave me a chance to get into "New Girl" 5 years late, so there's that.
Even if the statistically unlikely worst were to happen and the cancer comes back, there's a process to follow, there's a treatment course to try. If that doesn't work, there's another process to follow, another treatment to try. Medicine is very advanced in the field and I'm still young and resilient. There's no reason to believe that a recurrence like that will happen, but it's a possibility. That can sometimes make it seem unfair to try and build out relationships, though. It makes me feel guilty they have to deal with it or that I'm wasting someone's time. It can make me very hot and cold. Is the worst the only possible way forward?
Of course not, there's puppies and sunshine too. Every day I feel better. Every day my outlook gets more positive. The most difficult part is realizing finishing treatment wasn't a magic wand, it's a whole new process to get better. Sometimes I think about it as I'm still in treatment, it's just now treatment is simply getting my life back.
Ultimately, I've become closer with much of my family and friends, made a few new friends along the way and cut some dead weight. The upside of dealing with an existential crisis is that you begin recognizing things that are important versus those that aren't.
What happens now?
Now, I live my life until something changes. It's taken a lot of soul-searching to get to this point to be honest and I'm still very hesitant to talk step deeply into the topic with people in person. It's not that I don't want to, it's just I feel like an asshole pawning that weight off on someone else. Why do you think I wrote this out here instead? The blog is like the white washed walls of an asylum and I've got a nice red crayon to deface it with my insane thoughts.
Really though, I'm going to make an effort to update this blog when I think I have something to say which is not always. But I'm going to try. Getting my thoughts out there helps. Hearing it helps others is even better. Laugh with me and we'll go places.
What else can we all do except for hang in there?
