Cancer Lesson #70: Staying on Track

Cancer Lesson #70: Staying on track

In April 2011, I wrote a poem about preparing for surgery (Lesson #23), which read in part, “This engine’s going to switch its track.”

The railroad analogy has held true and remains the best way I can describe what it felt like to learn I had cancer.

I’d been chugging along on my chosen track, taking in the sights, when BAM! I was shifted to an alternate route into Cancerworld.

Six months later, chemo – and my time on the siding – ended. I rejoined the “main line,” choosing a slower route with better scenery.

The new route included more stops, sometimes at smaller stations along the way and sometimes in the middle of nowhere, when I was too exhausted to go any further.

In short, there were times I became the little engine that couldn’t.

I’m sure you remember that book: Watty Piper’s classic The Little Engine that Could. If you’re my age or older, you probably read it as a “Little Golden Book,” but it’s published in hardback too.

The little engine’s mantra of “I think I can, I think I can” is a great philosophy, one that had always worked in the past. And yet, in that first year after chemo, there were times it didn’t matter how hard I thought I could. I couldn’t because I was just too damned tired.

I’d been warned recovery would be slow, but somehow I thought my train would be, I don’t know, ahead of the curve.

Tomorrow it will be four years since my surgery, and these days I occasionally find myself taking the easy route, even when I think I can – I know I can – manage the hilly one.

This is a change. After surgery and chemo I spent two years testing myself, trying to figure out what I could still do, but I no longer feel I have anything to prove.

Instead, I’ve begun to understand that we will all die with some goals unaccomplished.

It’s up to us to decide which ones to let go now and which to continue to strive for.

 

Cancer Lesson #62: Chemotherapy Has a Long Tail

Cancer Lesson #62: Chemotherapy has a long tail.

I’ve been lucky. My cancer lessons could have been much harder learned. Soon after I finished treatment, however, one slouched into my brain forcing me to comprehend that exhaustion – sheer debilitating fatigue – had become a part of my day.

I’d never felt so feeble, even during chemo — probably because I was at home during most of that time and could rest whenever I wanted.

You see, I had access to both my accumulated sick time and the library’s sick bank, which meant I didn’t have to work during that period. Plus I was between positions so there were no worries about how my department was functioning without me.

Returning to work made all the difference. I discovered I couldn’t work and do everything I thought I needed to, let alone everything I wanted to do. And I was only working part-time!

Most evenings I came home and stared at the walls.

It was weird to feel mostly healthy when you’re not yet completely recovered, but I knew it would get better.

My oncologist told me I was at about 50% of my normal energy level. Chemotherapy, he says, has a long tail.

It’s a great image, bringing to mind a sleek cat slowly disappearing from view. The last one sees is a flick of that tail, and then it’s gone.

I expected my “new normal” to appear as silently as the cat, and it did. One day I realized I felt, well, almost normal. And that was that.

No more tail.

Cancer Lesson #??” Everything Has Side Effects

Cancer Lesson #??: Everything has side effects

Let me be clear. I’m very, very glad to be here.

And as side effects go, gaining a few pounds is a trifle, an infinitesimal detail scarcely worth mentioning.

I’m mentioning it anyway because it’s a good reminder that every cancer treatment has side effects.

My friend Pat’s maintenance drug makes her blood pressure go up, so she has to take another pill for that, which has its own side effects.

My drug, Arimidex/Anastrozole (an aromatase inhibitor), is meant to increase the time before cancer comes back, reduce the risk of it spreading, and reduce the risk of a new cancer developing.

Well, yay for that!

That doesn’t mean I have to like the side effects.

The biggie with Arimidex/Anastrozole is bone thinning and weakening, which I’ve managed to avoid so far.

Yay again!

But there are others: bone and joint pain, nausea, vomiting, hot flashes, weakness, fatigue, headache, loss of appetite (yeah, like that ever happens to me!), constipation, diarrhea, heartburn, weight gain, mood changes, difficulty sleeping, dizziness, vaginal bleeding, vaginal dryness, dry mouth, dry skin, cough, and hair changes.

So, here’s the thing: I’m happy to take anything that might keep me walking longer on this earth. And most of the time, I will gladly put up with bone twinges, personal heat waves, and yes, even weight gain.

Only sometimes, I want my old body back, that pre-hot-flash, semi-skinny one I once took for granted.

It’s then I remind myself that things could be different.

You see, at least I’m here to have side effects.

Countless others weren’t so lucky.