More than once I've compared the slow and painful spread of depression through my life to a cancer. I did so blindly, not knowing first hand the similarities one had to the other. How fortunate for me I've now had the gift of cancer metaphorically and literally. Not only had I compared the two and acted as if the pain of depression was the same but I welcomed actual cancer. Too unsure to walk out of this life I would day dream of how glorious an end it would be to slowly wither away. Friends and family loving you, devoted to you, standing by your side and telling you how strong you are as you get weaker and ultimately leave them. Never once did I consider survival. These dark thoughts were always in a place in my mind where cancer equated to death. What we don't realize is the moment we are faced with the possibility of death is the moment we realize how unready we are to truly face it. I became more confused and frustrated with every test and procedure. Filled with emotions so mixed I didn't know what I was even fighting for. Counting down the days to have my traitorous body parts amputated became my obsession. Researching every possible outcome was my new hobby. with each piece of information (bad or good) and each procedure and surgery I had hoped for a bit more peace. A gradual climb back to my life as I knew it, perhaps even improved. But every step robbed me of something else. My dignity was the first to go, displaying myself to countless nurses, doctors and technicians. Unveiling myself in the least comfortable ways possible in the name of survival. Next went my time, overburdened with appointments to the point I could barely keep track of where I was to be each day and what they would be doing to me when I got there. Then it came for my freedom. Bound to a bed that would literally set off an alarm if I even turned to stand up. Sent home to a chair I would be stuck in for weeks. Everything I enjoyed was off limits. No rock climbing, no running, no tennis, no fun. Once the medications began sleep was even off the menu. Then it came for my heart, my everything, my reason to fight through it all. Cancer came for my family. It didn't infect them with it's cell dividing fury in the same way it did me. It tore them apart. It separated them from me, it scared them, it shook them so hard we didn't recognize each other.
Six months later it's "gone". They cut it out of me, labeled it bio-hazard, poked around at it, named it with numbers and stages and phases and graded it on it's ability to return. They drugged me, rebuilt my body and pushed me out of the medical nest. Fly little bird, we fixed you up. Everything is fine now. Go. Live. So here I am, living. Not living the life I lived before and not living some new and improved life. Living in the wreckage. Navigating what cancer has done to my personal relationships, my body, my finances, my body......Yes, twice I know. I can't look myself in the eye in a mirror anymore. I can scan my body up and down at full length. Inspecting each roll that has returned despite all of the work I had done before all of this to tone them. Analyzing the silicone, nippleless breasts that sit too high and don't actual resemble breasts to me. I can strip the fluids from the drains that hang out of the sides of my body and confidently dress myself to cover it all...but afterwards, to look myself in the eye and face that this body I am caring for is MINE. It's overwhelming, all consuming and so far still an every day nightmare.
I am sorry I ever day dreamed of a graceful, sickly fade out of this life. I apologize for taking for granted the love I already had from my friends and family. I am filled with so many regrets and no way to take any of them back. For all of it all I can say is....I didn't know. I didn't know pain, I didn't know suffering and I didn't know how bad it could be. At this point all I want to know is when it gets better, if it gets better and how it gets better. It's such a slow crawl to the end of this hell and the scariest part of it all is I have no idea what that end is. There is no return to how it was. That life is gone and this whole ordeal has remolded me more than just physically.
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