I cannot take credit for writing this, although I could very well be the author. I think any cancer patient could be the author of this. I thought about whether or not I wanted to post it, but I think it is important for you, the reader, to understand what is going on in a cancer patients head. I also want each and every one of you to never take your health for granted and take the time to take care of yourself. Maybe if I had taken the time to focus more on myself, I would have found my cancer earlier. I also pray that as I move from cancer patient to cancer survivor, these feelings will not be so strong. I never will forget, nor do I want to forget. There is a lesson in all of this. I believe that with all my heart. I am a teacher, and always wanted to be a teacher, ever since I can remember. And everyone knows teachers do their best work when they lead by example and create concrete life experiences for their students.
My thoughts follow the posting.
Holding Hands with Cancer
Allow me to educate you a bit on what life is like when cancer is holding your hand:
- You feel as if you have been handed a death sentence when you don't understand what the crime was
- You want to weep every night at the thought of your child's future without you by his side as he reaches each milestone in life
- Your heart breaks a little every day when you think about life without your parents, your family, and especially your spouse/partner because it was cut short by the cancer
- You ask your husband every night if you are going to live a long life, if you are going to be okay
- You realize what hell on earth really is like when you sit through 4 hours of chemotherapy every 2 weeks for 4 months, watching the red poison enter your battered and bruised arm because your veins are bad; then you go home and wait for the nausea, disorientation, the discomfort, the pain, and headaches to begin, then just as it ends, you go in for another dose.
- You watch through saddened eyes how quickly your parents have aged through all the chemo and surgeries, how stooped your husband's shoulders have become and how big your child's eyes are when he asks if mommy is feeling better
- You struggle through the fatigue, the pain and the second degree burns that radiation causes as you drive to the hospital EVERY day for 6 weeks to "excise" whatever cancer may be left
- You battle with weight loss, then weight gain, hair loss then hair gain and start to realize how vain you used to be and how little that matters in comparison to just making it through this day and the next
-You worry about your financial situation and make sacrifices in order to provide for your child so that he is never to go without even if you and your husband do because you cannot work
- Your heart aches every time you think, talk, or imagine what your future holds as now your mortality is in the hands of cancer
- You tell yourself: please let me live another day, survive another scan, move ahead with my life without cancer and cherish every birthday, holiday, anniversary that you are able to experience and celebrate and hope that you make it to the next
- You bargain with God, Buddha, Allah, Ra, Zeus, anyone that you think may hear you - let me live long enough to see my son grow up to be a man, though I will never EVER stop fighting!
- And you always ask "Why me?"
Now, my thoughts.
-I don't feel like I have been handed a death sentence, but rather, the fact that none of us are immortal has been shoved in my face, decades before I wanted it to be. I do sometimes wonder what I could have done that was so wrong, to deserve this.
-Sometimes when I can't sleep I will sit on the floor in my children's room and watch them sleep, give them kisses, cry and pray to God they don't have to grow up without a parent. I love them so much and want to protect them from the pain and sadness in the world. I just want to keep them safe and happy.
-I try not to ask people if they think I am going to be ok, because who wants that guilt if things don't work out the way we'd like them to? I do say that I'd like to survive this, and live for decades. I struggle with some situations as I'd really like to say sometimes if I'm not here for blank blank, this is what I'd like to happen, but people don't like to hear that. However, how will I make sure things I feel strongly about get voiced, or carried out if the outcome we all pray for doesn't occur? I'd like to ask my doctor if she thinks I will live a long time, but I am afraid of her answer.
-My chemo was 27 weeks long, every Thursday. Usually it was my mom who came with me, but I did have a good friend come with me a few times, as well as my sister in law, my dad and husband. It was hard hearing my name be called each week, Kari Lynn, like when I was 8 and did something to get in trouble. Before I was diagnosed, I used to make the joke you know it's serious when they call you by your first and middle name. Loyola always calls me by my first and middle name. The waiting room was almost as hard as Loyola did not give me a regular time so there were always different people in the waiting room. The second glances as I walk by, the heads that pop up from their magazines when the nurse ask me to verify my birth date and they hear 1976. Doctors and nurses have walked into the exam rooms and turned to my mom, rather than me. Assumptions. You know what happens when you assume. Each week it got more routine, but it never got easier. Although there is comfort in routine and knowing what to expect. A few times tears would run down my face as they would push that red poison in my port, knowing that I would feel terrible for the next four to six days. Knowing that the next week I'd be back again, doing it all over again. Praying that this medicine works.
-The effects of my diagnosis on my family is devastating. The writer has nailed it. My parents and my husband have aged so much this past year. My children are terrified. I am devastated that I have brought this situation into our family. I know I didn't do anything to bring on this cancer, but I have a lot of guilt for my diagnosis brought this pain and sadness to my family.
-I am in the first week of radiation now, and am going to have the same attitude that I had during chemo. I know what people say, but that doesn't mean that it is going to happen to me. I will deal with the side effects as they occur. I will believe that the pain is temporary, but the effects will help me live a long life. I will take it one day at a time.
-Self image is hard, and I am just going to roll with it. I am not letting my body define my image of myself.
-The finances are hard, but so many people have contributed to the bank account, held fundraisers, brought us dinner, that this is not as big of a burden as it could have been. So thankful for all of you!
-My future is uncertain, yes, but guess what? so is everyone elses. I imagine myself doing all the things that I want to, and hope that I can see these visions through. I imagine myself at my children's first day of each school, their graduations, weddings, birthdays, births of their babies and my 50th wedding anniversary. I even imagine my children screaming they hate me and slamming a door in my face when they are teenagers! Yes, sometimes these visions make me cry, but it also gives me the strength to fight on the hard days.
-I don't bargain with God anymore. Although I did in the beginning. But what I asked for, or bargained for, was for my loved one's lives. I would take this disease, if that meant that it protected the ones I loved from ever developing this disease. I also ask God to please don't let me suffer terribly from this disease.
-I don't spend a lot of time asking why me? Why not me? Why anyone? I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy, and I don't spend time trying to figure out how there are murderers and rapists in this world walking around healthy while someone like me who just wants to raise her little family and contribute to society while she does it, can be struck with this illness. There isn't an answer other than life isn't fair.
What this doesn't mention, is what this cancer has given me. The support and strength of family and friends, community members and strangers. The chance to let people know how I feel about them, and the chance for people to tell me how they feel about me. The chance to show the world that this can happen to anyone, at any age and to be aware of your body and advocate for yourself. The chance to treasure each day, each moment and each occasion.
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