Loss Of Interest

Ann~Join the Club~many ladies here have adjusted 2A new normal!

Well Good Evening Ann

It’s hard to know where to begin since I don’t know anything about you, other than you are visiting us here on the Ovarian Cancer link.  Would you mind giving us a little bit more history?  Actually you don’t have to answer any of these questions, but they are just the questions that would help me to understand your “lack of interest” in life in general.  So I hope the way I answer this letter will not be depressing.  I don’t get the impression that you are complaining.  It seems it is more a matter of your thinking, “What do I have to live for?  I can’t do the things I used to do!”

1.      For instance, what was your original diagnosis?

2.      What kinds of chemo and radiation did you have?

3.      Whose is your medical team?

4.      What kind of prognosis have they told you to expect?

5.      Do you have other medical problems?

6.      Are you young, older, married with or w/o children?

7.      What interests did you have that you are no longer interested in?

8.      Do you have any long-lasting side effects from your treatments such as neuropathy?

9.      Now Ann, you don’t have to answer any or all of these questions, but since you’ve only told me that you’ve lost interest in so many things in the last two years since your treatment?

10.  What were the treatments designed to accomplish?  Do you still have cancer?

11.  Are you considered in remission?

12.  Are you physically unable to do the things you once enjoyed or is a matter of “just losing interest in life in general?”

Since you didn’t choose to tell us anything “about you” on the “about me” page, (I checked all the categories), I wouldn’t know where to begin.  If you are a Stage IV Ovarian Cancer patient, and have exhausted all possible treatments, and there’s nothing left to try, then that would be a cause for depression.

 You write:  “Hi everyone, I'm new to the boards, two years since chemo and radiation treatments. My questions, is it normal to feel fatigued most days? Another issue I struggle with daily, loss of interest in so many things, I have to push myself everyday.   Is that normal?  I was hoping excercising, watching what I eat, would make a difference, but it hasn't.   If I over do it, which used to be easy, and not considered over doing it, I pay for it the next couple of days.   I'm not complaining, just a bit frustrated, and wondering if anyone else is experiencing, what I am. I think the old me is silently crying out to go back to, what used to be my normal. Thank you!” 

Ann, if you are not left with any residual neuropathy, and aren’t experiencing any ongoing pain, and aren’t on medications that could alter your emotional state, then I think possibly you have answered your own question in the last sentence you wrote.  “I think the old me is silently crying out to go back to, what used to be my normal.” 

Ann, you’ve heard the expression, “No use crying over spilled milk!”  Some say “spilt” while others say “spilled” – either way it’s gone and can’t be put back in the bottle.  And life is that way too.  Some things will just never be the same, but we must go on living and making the most of what’s left.  We can “pick up some pieces of our life and move on from there”.  That’s what I am doing with the help of the Lord.  And incidentally, did you know that February 11^th of each year is “Don’t cry over spilled milk day?”  https://dairygood.org/Content/2014/The-Scoop-Behind-Dont-Cry-Over-Spilled-Milk

So wouldn’t it be nice if we could “bottle up our woes” and only think about them one day a year?  February 11 is also one day before my next birthday.  I will be 79.  I’m thankful that I lived this long before my life suddenly changed.  My life could have ended with my cancer diagnosis back in 2012.  My husband could have died from his Esophageal Cancer diagnosis, but he is 15 years down the road without a recurrence.  Am I going to spend each day wondering will this be the day his cancer returns?  I could.  Would that make me happy?

Will today be the day that some horrendous pain shoots through my body and I end up in the Emergency room, or the morgue?  Will it make me happy to wake each day in anticipation of something bad happening?  No, rather I choose to wake up each morning and thank the Lord that He has let me live another day, to enjoy another sunrise, to be with my husband, to have energy to cook and enjoy what I eat.  I could have throat cancer and half my tongue missing, and be unable to swallow.  I could be nauseous every day.

I’m thankful to still be able to live at home and have my mental faculties to know who I am and where I am.  I’m thankful to still have a husband who is a helpmate.  I’ll be attending a funeral tomorrow of a husband who has died of multiple myeloma.  I attended the funeral of a high school classmate who died of Pancreatic cancer just 3 weeks ago. 

I’m still able to walk although I’m a bit unsteady on my feet, but a cane cures that problem.   In short, there are so many things that I can still do, that I don’t have time to waste mourning over things I can no longer do. 

I will tell you that as a Stage IV cancer patient, I am “tired all the time.”  But I push myself.  I don’t take naps and I sleep well at night.  I’m not in any particular pain, but my tumor markers are rising with each passing month.  I’ve had Cytoreductive Surgery, 3 different regimens of Carboplatin/Paclitaxel (Taxol) plus targeted radiation since 2012.  My cancer is very much still alive.  However, I’ve accepted my cancer from the first day I was diagnosed with Peritoneal Carcinomatosis, and even learning it was also in both ovaries when I went for a 2^nd opinion.  I didn't say "WHY ME LORD?  Rather I said, "WHY NOT ME?  Who am I to escape?"   I am a high-energy, outspoken woman of 78, diagnosed first in November of 2012.  I refuse to lament over things I can no longer do, but rather am grateful for the things I can still do.  Moreover, there are many people suffering with other diagnoses that I would not want to trade places with. 

My day will come when the Lord will call me home, but till then I’m not going to “die daily”.  I can only answer for myself.  So far I notice that 29 people have read your letter, and yet have not answered.  February 11^th is also national “Make a Friend Day” https://www.daysoftheyear.com/days/make-a-friend-day/.  I hope others will answer you and let you know how they approach their situation.  Let’s don’t wait till February 11^th to be friends. 

It’s nice to meet you today, Ann.  And once more, I believe you’ve answered your own question as well as anyone else could.  Perhaps making a list of the things you can still “do” and a list of the things you can no longer do, and see which one is the longest.  Choose to dwell on the “can-do” list.  It will brighten your day—it does mine.

Loretta

Peritoneal Carcinomatosis/Ovarian Cancer Stage IV since 2012

P.S.  As for eating and exercising.  I counted my last calorie the day I was diagnosed with cancer.  I eat anything I want!  I never had a weight problem until I got pregnant.  I was a bit surprised when I gained 49# and the baby only weighed 7 # 20oz.   Guess the rest was “baby fat.”  Once when I approached the age of 40, I said, “It’s now or never.”  I went on a strict diet and fasted one day a week.  I set a goal to be slim in 6 months and I made it.  I must have weighed 112 for at least two days.  Now I weigh 152.  I went to lunch with my husband’s family a few weeks ago.  The ladies looked at me and said, “You don’t have any wrinkles!”  Well, I do, but not as many as they do.  Now stop and think about it.  Just how many old wrinkled fat ladies do you know?  Guess you could say “I’m fat and happy.”  Losing or gaining a pound is no longer the top priority in my life.  I’m happy to be alive.

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"DON’T  QUIT

 

When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,

When the road you’re trudging seems all uphill,

When the funds are low and the debts are high,

And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,

When care is pressing you down a bit,

Rest, if you must—but don’t you quit.

 

Life is erratic with its twists and turns,

As everyone of us sometimes learns,

And many a failure turns about

When he might have won had he stuck it out;

Don’t give up, though the pace seems slow—

You might succeed with another blow.

 

Often the goal is nearer than

It seems to a faint and faltering man,

Often the struggler has given up

When he learned too late, when the night slipped down,

How close he was to the golden crown.

 

Success is failure turned inside out—

The silver tint of the clouds of doubt—

And you never can tell how close you are,

It may be near when it seems afar;

So stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit—

It’s when things seem worst that you mustn’t quit.”

 

Anonymous