Hello again. It's been a long past week. I spent about six days in the hospital receiving round 5 of my chemotherapy treatment. Each of the rounds alternate between two different regimens of drugs. So that means I only have to do this particular regimen one more time before I'm done, in round 7. The typical pattern I've experienced is that it takes me a couple of days to recover from a round of treatment. So when I return home from the hospital I'll have two to three days of feeling pretty rough, and things ease gradually until I'm back to a more normal state. In the past I've gone through this short recovery period and then had to undergo more treatment the following week. So just when I was feeling good again I would get knocked back down by a nice dose of poison to the brain. This round is the first time I don't have those follow up treatments. I'm extremely happy about this. Right now I'm at my most vulnerable. My blood counts are low and my immune system is on the fritz. I'm finally recovering from what was a fairly uncomfortable and challenging round of treatment physically. And so to be allowed to continue to rest and feel better each day is a huge deal.
I've been living this reality of having cancer for about three months now, but I'm still adjusting to the idea of it. It's just so foreign to me that I would be this sick, this far from healthy and functional. I go to the cancer clinic for my appointments with my oncologist and I'm almost always the youngest person there. Everyone else is old and sick and looks terrible. I'm exaggerating a little, but it's kind of bizarre to be there. I don't feel like I belong. My point is, I am still wrapping my head around this, on a daily basis. Even though I'm immersed in it and just getting pummeled by the reality of it, it just hasn't quite sunk in. Part of me feels like it's a good thing. After all, who wants to be comfortable with the idea of having cancer? I don't intend to ever settle into this. I intend to survive this treatment and move on with my life, healthy and happy as ever. But I have to accept where I'm at. I have to embrace the reality of it, because it takes a lot of will power and resolve to survive cancer, to rebuild your body, and to thrive afterward. So I have to be identified with it, while keeping it at arm's length. At least, that's how I'm thinking about it today. I'm not sure how other people deal with this same dilemma. I do think it would be really helpful for me to talk with others who are in my situation and find out.
I have continued to feel bolstered by the renewed resolve that I experienced before going back to the hospital last week. Accompanying my recommitment to undergoing chemotherapy has been a commitment to surviving chemotherapy, and surviving it well. I don't want to suffer through each day, even if I don't feel good. I want to kick ass. I don't want to crawl around feeling beaten down and defeated. I want to be a rock. I want to be solid and strong. And more and more I'm feeling that way. It's encouraging. And I think it's a huge component of what cancer is all about. Maybe it's the fact that there's nothing I can point to physically in terms of a root cause for my disease. Nothing that I've done that I can say, ok that's why I have this, that's why this has happened. But I just feel that there is a really big psychological factor in cancer. In having it, in beating it. I know there are physical things that caused it to happen. But because I don't know exactly what they are I can only really focus on what I can control. And the biggest thing is my state of mind. It's like the guy who was given a month to live with lung cancer and decided that he would survive. And he did. There's definitely something to that.
Another subtlety of this mental shift of mine has to do with not fighting against the idea that I have cancer. I have it. I have to deal with it. I have to go through this experience. And that's ok. It is what it is anyway. Before I was feeling strongly that I wanted to be doing more during this time. I wanted to be working part time, I wanted to be more productive, I wanted to be doing. Anything. But now I've been able to accept the fact that what I'm going through is intense enough. I don't need to be doing more. What I'm doing is pretty darn tough. So I'm going to put my focus on doing it well. Surviving this so I can really get back to doing the things I love and am excited about when it's all over. And not worrying about the fact that I can't do those things right this minute. Sure, I'm bored at times. And it's part of the challenge for me to be inactive. I find fulfillment in doing things, especially physically active things. So it's really difficult to have to sit out, so to speak, for six months. But right now this is my job. Making it through each day so that I can give back when this is over. That's what motivates me, keeps me going. I am excited thinking about it. And it feels so much better to just take care of what's in front of me, and not to worry about what else I 'should' be doing. This is it right now, and I'm finally feeling ok with that. That's a weight off my shoulders for sure.
I don't know what the next several weeks will bring. It seems like each round of treatment is getting harder for my body to deal with. But there are other things that are getting easier. And I only have three more to go now. Three more weeks of sitting in a hospital bed while the second hand of the clock ticks around. Some days it's all I can do just to let time pass by without losing my cool. But I'm doing it. I'm surviving. I'm outlasting this process. Soon it will be over and the horribleness will fade. The sharpness of my discomfort will fade. I will be able to think clearly, see clearly, hopefully use my voice clearly again. One of the things that clicked for me last year when I was rock climbing all the time was that to succeed you just have to keep going. To persevere. I learned how to make that shift mentally when I was getting close to falling or to feeling like I wouldn't make it. To choose to keep going. Just keep going, I would tell myself. So far that's worked pretty well.
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