Not feeling strong and brave now

inkblot said:

Hi wimpy:

No, you're not going off the deep end although it can feel that way sometimes.

Here's how I see it: We go through a dreadful time with our diagnosis and our lives suddenly change to a tunnel vision survival mode. Add to that the whirlwind of treatment, including surgery, chemo, rads and whatever else. We get through this stage, with or without complications, although typically this stage is accompanied by a hefty helping of various and sundry miseries/side effects. We struggle through all that madness as if little has happened really. People marvel at how strong we are. In reality our emotions probably haven't caught up to our reality yet. Meanwhile, our hair falls out, our skin resembles a close relative of sand paper, finger and toenails revolt and discolour, even twisting themselves into strange and unusual living artforms. Our friend, the poison, wields a sort of switch, and when flipped, can render our eyes a replica of the Sharan Desert or Niagara Falls...sometimes all in the same day. Do we need moisturizing eyedrops or a bedsheet to use as a drying towel? Maybe we'll figure this one out tomorrow? And why do I feel wired as if I may need to actually power a light bulb or two, after these treatments? Doc just hands me a sleeping pill if I "really" can't fall asleep of my own accord, not to mention my own exhaustion, which he simultaneously ignores. Wait! I know! He's waiting for me to snarl and display serious gnashing of teeth in order to express my level of exhaustion! If I do that though, I'll be deemed "overreacting" and get a pill for that as well. Somewhere it must be written that nothing resembling "impolite", particularly anything resembling insistense about indescribably painful or exasperating things one is feeling shall transpire from patient to physician. LOL Forget that! We're the one's with cancer but we must remain polite and patient with their ramblings and short attention spans at all costs. Even smile, if possible, while they ignore our insistence that yes, these mouth sores are killing me and my right leg is numb and since you insist that the chemo isn't causing this, then maybe you could please find out what IS causing it!

All this makes us tired, of course, but in our spare time, we take a class or two to learn how to continue to bat our lashless eyelids while continuing to try to look/feel "normal" about something in this vortex we've fallen into. Must look normal no matter what! LOL

Never mind all this though, we put one foot in front of the other anyway. We bounce out of that bed every morning and barring a few expletives, we carry right on. Our mind is filled with thoughts of getting past this latest treatment. Little beyond that except what will happen to our kids if we up and die in this process. We worry about the loved one's we'd leave behind if the worst happened and we want to make arrangements for if the worst does happen, but then, won't that look like we're expecting the worst to happen and is that "normal" to be thinking like that? Is that negativity incarnate? Nope, better get over that thought right now! Will these drugs kill the cancer or kill me while trying? Still a possibility. At least it feels like a possibility right now. We wonder this sometimes as we go to sleep at night? The only echo of anything resembling an answer is: "No one knows, my Dear", "All is fair in love and war" and "Que sara"! Where's the Senekot? We ask our docs questions about things happening to us as well as to other's on the same drugs. They may shake their heads and say they've never heard of chemo causing that before! Well, damnation, doc, the consent to treat papers only said these few things may happen and here I've got about 12 other things going on and now you say you've never heard of it. Why, you reckon, is it also happening to about 10 other women in my support group?!!! Doc thinks you've had a very strong "over" reaction to being ignored or not listened to carefully and actually suggests sending you home with some medication to control your outbursts!

Well, it seems reasonable to me that as our "normal" circumstances change, then it follows that our "normal" reactions/behaviours will also change. All this adds up, I think, to perfectly "normal" for whatever circumstances happen to be in our lives at any given time.

If people don't want to accept this simple logic, then shame on them. If they do, then great.
Yet sometimes, we may not even want to accept this logic ourselves. Our emotions are stuck somewhere around the time when they told us we've got cancer. Our gauge of "normal" is also still
stuck back there and it's frightening to think we may be losing it. We begin to think maybe the doc is nuts too. At some point though, we turn to our sisters (and/or brother's) in cancer, we read and research and share and say: are you SURE you've got this going on too? So, what do you do for it? Finally, we begin to SHARE more and understand more of our selves and we begin to learn and begin to better realize the proportions of what we're dealing with. It's big.

It took all our energies just to take the poison and recover so we could take it again. So poison is now our friend. (by the way how normal is it to think poison is our friend? "they" want us to envision the poison as loving, purple teenie tiney handgranades, also our friends, and as they blow up, they kill our cancer. See, different circumstances and "normal" isn't quite so "normal" anymore...but if "they" say so, then we'll get our imagery turned on and see what we can do here!) Our friend will likely also fry our ovaries into early menopause, if we weren't there already. Still, we're ok with that. We'll deal with the whatever's of that later on. When we find out that we may never have another period again, we wonder if the docs are going to acknowledge this or if it'll be one of those things they've never, ever heard of before! Perish the thought! What's "normal" about any of these serious things happening to us? Nothing.

Now, all this is done (and more) and suddenly, boom! our treatment is over. Now what? Those frequent doc visits and tests are over. We're on our own, more or less. We're cut loose...set adrift as it were, with a follow up visit schedule and a "see you then". What would any "normal" person do, in the face of all this? Well, first of all, we ARE perfectly normal, it's just the fact that the big C has jumped into our lives so, excuse me, but this changes our "normal" for quite some time. Unless of course, it's "normal" to have cancer and "normal" to go bald, "normal" to be terrified and have the absolute heebie jeebies, "normal" to find that water suddenly tastes like boiled aluminum foil and that one's libido may have met its waterloo as well. Is it "normal" to sit quietly and have powerful, dangerous drugs pumped into our bodies, whilst we make small talk with the pumper (us being the pumpee), normal to depart that intimate union and say thank you to someone who just poisoned your entire system and got paid to do it! LOL (thank you kindly nurse and might I trouble you for 10 more lashes?) LOL Seriously, it's a whale of a lot to handle and remain functional sometimes.

I've used a lot of metaphors here and included some of the terrible experiences some of my friends have had with doctor's, etc. but wimpy, it's all about where we've been and then finally allowing a glimmer of light into our souls again. Our spirits have suffered terribly, as is normal and expected by those of us who understand what that kind of suffering is about.

The time of working it all out, WILL present itself. Doing this can be simpler some days than others but if you keep up the effort and accept your bruised and battered emotions as ok and normal, then you will persevere and you will find perspective and you will heal and you will have peace. It's ok to not always feel strong. It's ok to even throw a little pity party...any little sad, saggy party that serves to lift you up in the end. Just don't stay too long at any one of those "downside" parties. Use them as pole vaults of sorts, to the next level of healing. Pretty soon you'll be pole vaulting less and less.

I hope this makes some sense, and with all my heart I hope it may help you in not fearing your shifting priorities and the changes you're going through. Most especially to reassure you that you're not "abnormal" in feeling these things. Do discuss where you are with your GP or even try a conseling session or two, just to help you realize that you still do, in fact, have your hands on the steering wheel of your life, after all. Don't be afraid to steer into a few different directions and see what's there that may be good for you and put what you find that's good, to work for you. With this as your priority, you will find that the other priorities will seek their own level until you are able to assess and address each one more fully. Be patient with yourself and believe in yourself!

Keep us posted.

Love, light and laughter,
Ink