(Right?)
Long time no blog. Started a new job the week before last and was in a tizzy to wrap up freelance stuff before that sooo, oops. For the last week, though, I’ve had my very first post-chemo cold. A normal immune system function instead of a creepy one. But still. It’s been a bit disturbing. The coughing, the fevery feelings, the low low energy. It looks like cancer, feels like cancer, but it’s just a cold. Right?
My trainer Eileen told me to just observe this particular fear and not make it true or untrue, real or unreal. To just let it float, unattached. Which is actually helpful since my flip-flopping (this is just a cold. Right? No, maybe it’s not a cold. Yes, it’s just a cold. Should I get checked? No, you’re fine) was driving me more than slightly insane. So I have a cold. And in the midst of it I had a dream that I popped a blackhead on my nose and a clear blob came out but then it started running down my arm on tiny legs. I squashed it with my fingernail and it split in two and instead of dying started running in to different directions. Ew and interesting. That’s what my mind seems to be doing but it’s also what cancer cells do—divide in funky ways and take on a life of their own.
Anyway. I missed two days of work already from said cold. Oy, way to make a first impression. But I’m definitely prioritizing health and my immune system in a new, enhanced way. So I’ve been chugging Chinese herbs that taste like liquid ashtray and drinking garlic tea (T is not such a fan) and sleeping every moment that I’m not working or watching the final episodes of Weeds on iTunes.
The acupuncturist who gave me my Chinese herbs was kind of shockingly insensitive, in a very traditional sense. “So, you know that the kind of cancer you have has a very likely recurrence,” he said. And while I was still reeling from the “very likely” which felt like a metal pipe clanging very close to my head, he added, “chemotherapy can give you cancer. It’s miniscule compared to the initial risk of cancer, but still….” I’m sure there was some point he was trying to make in there but it was entirely lost on me. I ripped his head off only a little, telling him I wasn’t interested in hearing about my risk stats. I want to have a class for everyone who deals with illness on what to say and what not to say.
For example:
1) Don’t remind me of my mortality two seconds after I sit down in your office. Because chances are, I’m more aware than you are.
2) Don’t tell me bad shit about the treatments I’ve already gotten. What’s done is done.
3) Don’t poke my surgery scars and then act surprised (and annoyed) when it hurts.
4) When you’re an oncologist don’t put up a sign that says, “Attack Secretary” in your office.
5) Don’t tell me that my disease “looks beautiful under the microscope.”
6) Don’t tell me I’m lucky to have this disease.
7) Don’t tell me that something is not going to hurt when you know damn well it makes grown people sob.
8) Don’t say, “So I heard you had the big C” unless you love me. Scratch that. Never use “the Big C” in any context, ever.
9) Please, please, though it might seem fun, don’t tell me “You could get hit by a bus tomorrow” as a way of offering comfort and showing me the randomness of who gets to live and who gets to die. Because, brother, cancer is a bus and I’ve already been hit.
10) Don’t assuage my fears with denial. There’s an “It’s going to be okay” that’s truly comforting and there’s an “It’s going to be okay,” that denies my right to be scared. Sorry if that one’s tricky. Just feel it out.
