Courage

Tonight I check back in to the hospital to start round 4 of my chemotherapy treatment.  The goal with the early check-in is to get started with the actual treatment first thing Monday morning, and to hopefully wrap up the treatment and be able to check out earlier.  Everything takes time at the hospital.  Tests need to be run, physicians consulted, orders written, medications delivered from the pharmacy and administered by the nurse, who has several other patients and is incredibly busy.

I've spent most of the past couple of weeks dreading the continuation of this chemotherapy process.  Things are going well so far, and the treatment has been very effective.  But day to day it is not fun, to say the least.  I have been feeling isolated and paralyzed, unable to leave the house or enjoy most of the activities I usually do.  More than anything else I think I've just been afraid of being in more pain and discomfort.  I know this won't last forever, and I feel confident that I will be able to overcome the cancer.  But I've been overwhelmed by these emotions and fears and it's been quite a challenge for me lately.

I was sharing some of these thoughts and feelings with my family the other night.  I've always benefitted from being able to talk about things that are bothering me, and I'd been keeping these feelings bottled up.  The people around me have enough stress to deal with, and I didn't want to burden them with mine.  Also I didn't want others to worry about me, or to doubt my ability to persevere.  But I realized I needed to talk about what was bothering me; to have it reflected back to me from someone else's perspective.  My dad made a comment about courage.  He was referring to the idea that courage is overcoming fear.  And something about that comment triggered a shift in my thinking about my current situation.  I'd been pitying myself, feeling sorry for myself for being stuck and somewhat incapacitated.  I'd been afraid of going back to the hospital, being in more pain and discomfort there, and dealing with the effects of further chemotherapy.  I realized that early on in this process I'd responded with courage, certainly more than I had been demonstrating lately.  And I remembered that one of the most important factors in overcoming cancer is having a positive attitude; responding to the fear and the challenge with courage and determination.  Somehow I was able to get back to that place of strength during that conversation.  And since then I've been able to settle into that place, to remain determined to face and overcome the fears that come up, rather consistently, in this experience.

It's not easy, as I expressed in my last post.  But it's not supposed to be.  As we all know, life is full of challenges.  Cancer seems to be one of the more challenging things people go through.  But there are many many people who deal with cancer, and there are many who survive and thrive having dealt with it.  In my experience, through what I've heard and read from those survivors, they are often much better for it.  Such is the nature of challenging experiences in life.  They provoke the most growth, the most learning.  And therefore, in my opinion, they are to be embraced.  Recoiling in fear from the prospect of continuing chemotherapy is the opposite of embracing this challenge.  I'm not trying to chastise myself, but to remind myself to turn towards what scares me.  To embrace the challenge before me.  It's the most effective way to learn from it.  And it's definitely the most effective way to move through the challenge successfully.  In the case of cancer, where one's life hangs in the balance, success is an important outcome.