Reality

My cancer will not kill me.  This is not because of my optimism, determination or mental strength.  It is not because people prayed for me to a god who apparently makes choices based on popularity.  I will survive because I was fortunate enough to get this particular cancer at a time when science has developed extremely effective treatments.  I will survive because I have sufficient health insurance to pay for the treatment.  I’m not a warrior fighting cancer.  I’m lucky.

We want simple answers.  Life should be merely a matter of optimism, or trying harder, or determination, or being more kind.  We embrace slogans about good outcomes being a matter of decision, as if we're all at the same place.  Instead reality is complex, as much a matter of luck and circumstance as one’s ability to apply whatever virtues they may have.  The mental and emotional squalor of reality is not vulnerable to bumper sticker slogans.  This is not a Hallmark movie. 

Simplistic positivity belittles the magnitude of problems in any one individual's life.  “You’ve got this” in response to a personal crisis is an insult to the complexity of our lives, either naïve or patronizing.  A friend facing disease, a personal loss, or a financial crisis may not be able to overcome. 

Let people have their bad times.  No amount of fluency in feel good slogans or personal experience with your own problems qualifies you to decide when someone else should move on to acceptance or “snap out of it”.  Denying bad times is denying reality.  Some days I just look at reality and let it sink in.  Not a happy place, but that's the best I'm getting out of those days.  And sometimes those dark days help me make decisions that are ultimately helpful (or not).

I can usually conjure up some anger, which helps.  There is a line in Don Quixote, sung by Aldonza:  "Can't you see what your gentle insanities do to me?  Rob me of anger and give me despair."  Anger works for me, but to believe someone else need only summon fury to get them motivated is disrespectful to the individual that they are.

I've had people to rail to as well, precious people who are willing to accept me at my worst.  The word fuck is key to my survival.  As in "Fuck all this happy 'You got this' shit."  And "fuck this situation."  I think a lot of the happy mantras are based on accepting your current situation.  Fuck that.

Not accepting the role of courageous warrior with a Teflon smile does not mean I’m not coping with my reality.  Indeed accepting that role, while more socially comfortable for people interacting with me, would mean I’m not coping with my situation.  I’d be living a lie, trying to build my future on an imaginary present.  Being frustrated, tired, angry, and depressed are as much a part of my life as hope, courage, and thoroughly appreciating the occasional great day.   

Accepting A New Normal

The fact that I’m alive speaks to my acceptance of the reality of my present condition.  Accepting the reality of now does not mean accepting the inevitability of an unchanged future.

I am quite capable of discerning the changes time has wrought from the changes due to illness, or in my case the concomitant medications.  I know my own body and my own mind.  If you have struggled with low energy or other physical issues those are your challenges and I wish you success in dealing with them.  That does not mean that I should expect or accept the same problems in myself.

You have no idea what this new normal you are advocating for entails.  I have coped with a variety of symptoms that interfered with my ability to function in life.  The worst of these are much reduced now, precisely because I did not accept them as my new normal and instead vigorously pursued solutions.  I am not done yet.  Fuck acceptance.

Treading Water

It began to snow on my daily walk this evening, the first swirling flakes of a big storm.  I’ve traveled this route almost daily since early July trying to regain my strength and fitness.  It has not gone particularly well, almost no gains and plenty of days where I’m worse.  Treading water is better than drowning. 

When the days were hot, I walked early in the morning, including the Sunday morning I barely made it home with a TIA.  In frustration after that day I decided to keep going until I finally get off these damn meds or I break, whichever came first.  In practicality I started to carry my phone on the walks in case I needed to call for help.  As the days cooled my drug was changed.  Instead of my heart pounding I was short of breath.  Frustrated with the lack of progress I added some short running strips to the walk to push harder.  It didn’t kill me, so I kept it up.  September 21st my old body came back for a visit, running was easy and I danced to the music as I went.  Physical euphoria carried me further on the route, adding a half mile.  The next day the visitation was over, but I continued with the extended route as if I’d find that feeling if only I kept going.  The leaves began to turn, the air cooled, the sun receded.  I sometimes had to go out in the dark, just me, the cold, the stars, and the singing coyotes over the swamp.  I steadily became more short of breath and often dizzy, losing ground.  Treading water is better than drowning.  I kept going out daily, same route, same sections run between specific mailboxes or telephone poles.  My dose was reduced, but the change was disruptive.  I was often too weak to finish, but I kept going out.  Treading water is better than drowning.  More med adjustments and I could again reliably complete my route, which has become both literally and figuratively my sanity.  Now the leaves are gone, the world brown and gray, walks often done after dark.  I’ve gotten tips from other people taking these drugs on how to work back to some level of fitness, and realistic timelines for doing so.  I’ve been able to increase my running distances a bit.  My body is slowly realizing the benefit of the medication adjustments.  I’ve traded the shiny glory of September 21st for the very slow improvement in my breathing, speech, and a host of other side effects.

Then today the snow came, my final jog along the white expanse of the pond cathartic.  I watched the flakes coat my regular route.  My life for the past six months covered in a blanket of white, a cocoon within which I will continue moving forward where I can and treading water where I cannot.  The oh so beautiful blanket of white over the earth while it regenerates.  

I will not be sorry to kiss 2019 goodbye.

A Taste of Knowledge

Today I am thankful for the scientists, economists, data analysts, and statisticians.  The world in general, and my life in particular, are better for the people that questioned the assumptions and myths, probed the universe, and carefully tabulated all the results.  I thank those who are willing to form a theory, then grind through the data and accept when their original assumptions are not supported.  I thank those willing to subject their results to review from experts in their field before publishing.  From Galileo to Turing these people have often suffered the backlash when their work or their lives have challenged the myths and dogma that empower organized religion.  I thank those who are willing to take a bite from the proverbial apple.

The Hunt

A successful hunt today. I may be cold, tired, hungry, and cranky but I came home with 8 new pairs of pants.

I loathe clothes shopping, doing as much online as I can. But I need to try pants on. By last fall my pants situation was becoming desperate. I still did not get around to shopping before the holidays. I sure as hell was not going to go on Thanksgiving weekend, nor any time before Christmas, nor during the crowded January sales. Where clothes shopping is concerned, I can embroider excuses out of thin air. Then I was sick off and on last winter, spring, and summer. Mind you during this time I was able to work and take care of sheep and dogs, but my intermittent health status provided an excellent excuse.

I tried a run to the mall a couple weeks ago, leaving straight from feeding sheep. I had thrown a clean set of shoes into the van for the occasion. On the first trip into the dressing room I noticed that everything I touched was covered with hair. I decided to bail out of courtesy to others, and of course because I did not want to be there anyway.

Today I made a mission out of pants shopping. I crawled out from under my rock and learned a whole new vocabulary relating to pants. Pants are now “Skinny” or “Super Skinny”. There is also something called “jeggings” which look just like the skinny pants. I hate tight clothing. More’s to the point, WTF do I need skinny jeans at the barn for? Will the sheep be checking out my ass? And how is one supposed to get a pair of long johns on under these skinny pants? Jeans are now often “distressed”. To be clear, the reason I’m retiring my jeans is because they are truly distressed, to the point I need to be careful to wear nice undergarments and shave my legs. Apparently the appropriate place for jeans to be “distressed” is on the front of the thigh. I have news for you, fashionistas, real women have jeans that are distressed between the thighs, something that would be obvious if you were not using models whose thighs have never touched. The few times my jeans have been torn on the front of the thigh have involved blood, and once stitches. If you want your distressed jeans to look authentic, try adding some blood stains.

The office pants were not much better. Again, the styles were mostly “skinny”, which means if you don’t want to wear them like leggings you need to buy a larger size. This larger size leaves gaps around your body, and some have little side pouches on the thighs like old fashioned jodhpurs. Maybe I should just buy tall black boots and walk around the office with a riding crop. Probably would send the wrong message. I’m not overly thrilled with my choices on work pants, but hoping they soften to a better fit with washing.

Three stores and countless sarcastic thoughts later I was standing in my last checkout line when my tired and hungry body decided on a full out hot flash. WTF? It took all my willpower not to just drop the four pairs of Levis and escape to the blissful cold rain outside, heading straight home to eat. I persevered, determined to go home with enough of a haul to keep me out of the store for at least a year.

Cheerleading

Dealing with my required medication has not been all that easy.  Apparently I'm not the poster child for med tolerance.  Since the primary purpose of the current med is to suck the life out of me (I'm in disagreement with the doctors on this), I'm on a relentless mission to counter the side effects.  I don't know how to be anything other than a high energy person and don't plan to learn.  I've been making progress figuring out what helps and what makes it worse.  Not eating helps bring my energy back, but of course that is not sustainable.  So I experiment with what and when I eat, push through exercise, and write in my log every day to track what I've eaten, what I've accomplished, and how I feel. 

I use music to keep me going, always have.  Normally my choices have tended to the unabashedly exuberant:  Rubberband Man; Fat Bottomed Girls; In The Mood.  It took little musical encouragement to bring on all consuming physical and mental joy.  Now I'm often at a different starting point where my old favorites are incongruent to my state of mind.  Rather than draw me in they goad me in a way that hinders my ability to move forward.  I'm more reliant on music than ever.  I've learned to skip past selections that are too great a reach for my current mindset and find quieter rhythms.  Matching the musical attitude more closely to my starting point allows me to follow along, go forward, and maybe work to a place where my old favorites will be welcome.  If not today maybe tomorrow. 

In considering this I go back to a problem many, myself included, have in training dogs.  In offering encouragement we begin to cheerlead.  We offer boundless enthusiasm and energy with no regard to the mental starting point of our partner.  Our efforts are inaccessible to the intended recipient, and indeed are an irritation that hampers their mental reach.  We do this to people too.  We forget to let empathy shape our responses appropriately.

The Delivery

I had a decent day at work today though by the time I got home I was exhausted. I arrived to an intriguing big padded envelope in my mail. What could it be? I didn’t recall ordering anything so the mystery perked me right up!

The fucking chemo fairy brought me an informational “starter kit” for a drug I started last week. I’d of rather received a quarter under my pillow. The full color materials are covered with photos of happy people going fishing or on a picnic, like a bloody beer commercial. Seriously I think I got a pretty good sense of this stuff when I read the instructions online that warned me to “Wear latex or nitrile gloves when handling tablets that have accidentally been crushed or broken.” Are you kidding me? But don’t forget to toss your daily dose down! Maybe the happy brochure is to make up for that little tidbit? (If I put the broken tablet under my pillow do I get that quarter?)

Actually the new drug looks like it will be a keeper despite the failures of their marketing department. Time will tell. Meanwhile I’ll continue to thrive on a steady diet of sarcasm and swearing.