Something Evil This Way Comes

I had dinner with a friend tonight and I was trying to explain the strange zone I am in right now.
I’m not sick, but I am not well.
I already had a major grumble about that earlier today (see below).
It’s just weird right now.
In some ways, having finished the chemo means I now have the time, and some of the energy, to look back on what happened to me, and to Elaine, in 2004.
And let me just say, it’s actually a freakier thing to look at in retrospect than it is to just dig in and do it on a daily level.
And I think that’s because when you are actively in it there is so much stuff that you just push aside or stuff and you put one foot in front of the other and you go.
You go for bloodwork and you go for chemo and you go for doctor’s appointments and you go get your prescriptions filled and you go lay down and you get up again in about a week.
And now, it’s been four months since I finished my chemo and now I am trying to make sense of it.
It’s sort of like having spent seven months inside a blender and then getting tossed on to solid ground. It takes a while for the world to stop spinning and to get your bearings.
I feel like that’s the stuff I have to do now.
Trouble is, it’s a bit overwhelming and I am not sure I know where to start.
If I try to take on too much, I get tired and then I get grumpy because I am reminded that I am not able to do everything I used to do.

So, I am kind of confused right now.
See, it’s like this…
On one hand, I have all the gruelling moments of the last year that I need to just work through and deal with, one way or the other.
And, on the other hand, I have the daunting future looming before me.
Cuz, in case you didn’t know, just because I lived through chemo does not, not, not mean I am cured.
It means I am doing really well right now. And we will keep checking back for the next 7 years to make sure nothing is changing too much in all that.
It’s really a so far, so good sort of thing.
And I am totally delighted with where I am at, all things considered.
But it’s a bit like the old devil and the deep blue sea, if you know what I mean.
Sometimes I do literally feel squished by the enormity of the recent past and unknown freakiness of the future.
So sometimes all that pisses me off and makes me grumpy.
I try to remember how pissed off I will be if I do have a recurrence and I didn’t make the most of this time right now.
And still, sometimes I get crabby.
Sorry about that, comrades.
Bear with me, it’s all getting better, bit by bit.

My girlfriend says, quite frequently, that I don’t like change.
I disagree, and I tell her so.
I just don’t like change that I don’t like.
It’s that simple.
See, if I won the lottery and I was suddenly no longer dogged by money troubles, that would
a) be a change
b) be something I like.

So, as often happens when we disagree, I am right and she is wrong.
And that’s okay by me.

But back to the nasty issue of change…
It’s true, I tend to be a bit stubborn when things are pretty good and then some stupid thing or person happens along and shit-kicks the whole balance of things.
And it happens all the time.
Maybe we, as humans, are all just Weebles and we spend our lifetimes wobbling, and hopefully not falling down. Too often.

The other day, Elaine and I were looking at some pictures and some wee movies.
They were taken before any cancer diagnosis had happened.
I found myself looking at them with an eerie fascination.
“Wow, look at us then, playing with the kittens, going to work and planning holidays and thinking about life like we thought we were regular people, wow.”
That’s what I thought. But I didn’t say anything.
So, when Elaine said, “You know what’s weird about looking at these?”, I didn’t think she would echo what I had been thinking.
See, I am the Eeyore in this house and if anyone is going to see the dark side of something, it will probably be me (except for the times when I am much more of an optimist than Elaine… it’s freaky but it really does happen. But I digress…).

It’s weird to look back on life before the diagnosis.
It’s weird to look ahead and try to figure out what the future holds and where I fit in it all now.
It’s weird to figure out what I can and can’t do and to have to articulate that to everyone.
And on that, there is no one good social rule for people to follow.
If people want me to do more than I can, I will squawk.
If people underestimate what I can do, I will get bored or grumpy or insulted.
Nice set of options, no?

I am in a strange zone right now.
Kind of halfway between everything. Not unlike some small Prairie town.
I don’t think I “look sick” anymore. I can tell because people slam into me in crowds and stuff and I no longer qualify as a helpless little invalid.
There are a set of social behaviours that we reserve for when we are in the presence of the very ill and our grandparents and for the general population for the week leading up to Christmas.
I no longer qualify as the recipient of that behaviour, except in mid-December.
People will butt in front of me in a line-up, will screw me for a parking spot, pass me on the right and cut me off in traffic.
I am back as a card carrying member of the general population.
GenPop.

But the trouble is, I don’t *feel* 100% yet.
I mean, sometimes I do, but sometimes I don’t.
And I find I have to always calculate how I am doing and whether I am up for dinner with Mary and Marvin on Saturday night, and are they going to do up an organic meal or will I be invited over for another meal that I can’t eat?
(Cuz you know, I never planned on becoming so high bloody maintenance, but that’s where it’s at right now, and I can’t actually tell you how spectacularly boring it is for me to always have to always say, “oh… no thanks, I can’t eat that… not organic.”
Damn… I just hate it.
“Oh, no, really, water is fine… thanks.”)

And I think about going back to work.
Work would be good in some ways.
More contact with the world would be good.
Feeling like I was contributing would be good.
Bringing home a pay cheque would be more than swell.
But then I get struck by the fear…
What if I can’t?
I don’t even know what it is I think I might not be able to do.
Maybe I “can’t”.
Can’t what, I don’t know.

I was talking to a counsellor at the cancer agency. She said some people don’t go back to work for a year after their treatments end.
Lots of people find they have to go back to completely different jobs.
I don’t know about that.
I think I need to feel more productive soon.
I liked my job and I liked (most of) my co-workers and I liked what we did.

But still, it’s weird to not be working.
And I know most people drag their asses out of bed each day and hobble off to work and scheme about all the things they would rather be doing.
I bet laying in bed for a year may even be on some people’s lists.
My suggestion: Be more specific about the how’s and the why’s of the laying in bed for a year.
Just a tip.

Anyway, our lives changed a whole bunch.
I remember driving back into town last year, after our vacation and before my surgery.
I remember staring out the window as we drove along the highway.
I remember thinking I was about to have a surgery and who knew what might happen after that.
And I remember thinking I was being a melodramatic wanker as soon as I thought that.
It sucks to be right.

So, it’s all changed and it ain’t done changing yet.
And, really, things are just going to keep changing and I will keep trying to accept those changes.
Some are just a whole lot easier than others.

okay. I am gonna fill you in on a secret.

While I can’t speak for anyone else in the carcinoma club, when I was in the middle of being sick and doing chemo, I think I became a nicer human being.
By which I mean, other people didn’t piss me off nearly as much as they usually do. I could lay in my bed and think my lofty and generous thoughts about the world and I was a much more well-rounded person.
Now, I wasn’t actually physically capable of leaving my house or doing very much so I didn’t actually have much contact with the world. But in my sheltered state, I liked people quite a bit more than I did before.
I kinda thought that new Shirley Temple way of looking at the world would stick.
That I would come through the other side of the cancer game and I would maintain that Berkley way of seeing the world.
And the truth of it is… I might be a little bit nicer than I was before, but that probably gets off-set by the fact that I am in a fair amount of achey pain a lot of the time which makes me a wee bit crabby.
So at the end of the day, I am pretty much right back where I started.
In case you were thinking you might want to ring me up and bask in the great Elizabeth-Kubler-Ross-ness of it all.
And anyway, for all I know I was only getting all fluffy because of all the drugs they were giving me.
Why do you think they call it dope?

On other fronts, I realized yesterday that I feel like I am going flat out, as fast as I can, just to try to keep up with regular people.
And I feel a little overwhelmed by the whole “putting the pieces of my life back together” project that is before me.
I’m still figuring that part.
I guess it’s time to figure out a plan for how to get back on my feet.
It’s all kind of weird. The last year has been kind of intense, in lots of ways, and a whole lot of it involved just closing my eyes and gritting my teeth and doing it.
And now is the time where I have to sort through all that shite and take stock of the emotional processes involved in all that.
As well as build up my physical strength.
And return to work and start contributing to the overall financial well-being of my home.
And return to interacting with the humans here in the human world.
It’s all a lot.
I kicked and screamed when it was taken away from me, and now I feel uncertain how one returns to it all.
Weird, eh?

Well, we had a little visit with the oncologist today. The first visit since I finished the chemo.
Not that either of us have been at all tense about what the test results may say.
No, no.

So, with the CA-125 test, you want to have your test results be nice and low. You want your test results to either be under 35 or under 20, depending on who you talk to.
My last test result were 2.8. which is so clean it squeaks.
Today’s test results were 6.

There is much happiness with that number here at my house today.
And now you know too.

More later.

Our friends had a baby tonight.

We were around for a chunk of it and got to see the baby for a wee second.

Wow.
A baby in the mix.
Wow.

Way to go, you guys.

And, in case it isn’t completely evident, this post has absolutely nothing to do with cancer.
Hooray for that.

Somewhere along the line, I think it was in October, my oncologist was away at a conference and we met with a different oncologist, and she has a bit of a different style than my regular guy.
One of the things she said was that I needed to understand that, even though I was completely chomping at the bit to be finished the chemo, a lot of people experience a real crash after the chemo.
As she said, it was during that period of time that they start to reflect on what they have just gone through.
I thought that was worthwhile info at the time but I couldn’t imagine not being elated every second of every day in my post-chemo survivorship days.
And now I am in them.
And I am not depressed, but sometimes I do struggle to make sense of what just happened to me and my happy little life.
And I don’t mean that as a complaint, because really, all things considered, I think I was really lucky in lots of ways and really well taken care of on so many levels.
I don’t feel like complaining about the chemo days because I know I could have had it so much worse.
Still… it’s a lot to make sense of.
And sometimes I don’t even know where to begin.
Maybe if it was all over and I got a blue ribbon and a pat on the back and a guarantee of no more cancer ever.
Right now I am in a sort of limbo, at least that’s how I feel sometimes.
Still, it beats laying around popping steroids and watching my hair fall out by a long shot.

The really good news is a lot of the things I lost while I was doing chemo are coming back.
I think in the next couple of weeks I will be able to go out in public without covering up my stubbly little head.
I am pretty pleased about that.

I pretty much have full feeling in my feet and hands now.
I had neuropathy from the chemo, which is a really common side effect. Now it is almost completely gone.

And my “chemo brain” has been almost eliminated. I think.
Well, suffice to say that my memory is way better than it was a month or two ago, though it probably isn’t perfect now and who knows if it will ever be.
Still, happy to have made some progress on that.

And my veins are coming back.
They pretty much got corroded into oblivion during the chemo and poked to bits with the constant bloodwork.
I am pretty happy to see them making their way back.

Okay, kiddies, it’s time for this post-chemo cowpoke to saddle up the pj’s and bunk down for the night.

Later…

Hey!
I looked in my mirror today and realized that I have eyelashes!
That was a really good thing. It makes my face look a bit more normal.
The hair on my head is doing its best to grow back in, and it is all soft to touch because it is really fine.
Basically, it’s baby hair.
And there is a reason that our hair grows in like that when we are babies. It is because we aren’t going to remember how long it took to grow like regular hair because we are just babies and we don’t know any better yet. We are babies and have not yet become addicted to styling products.

Also, when you are a baby, people just think you are sweet for being a little pudgy squirmy thing.
It’s less sweet when you are my age.
Still, it’s all coming together and I am thankful for that.

Elaine has said for a while that every day my body changes. I think I am beginning to see it, partly because I have the whole hair thing going on, and also because I have been going to the gym and trying to be a bit more active. As a result, my moon face is fading and my cheek bones are starting to be evident again and that’s good.

Also, I was out in my yard yesterday and I was stunned and thrilled to see that my crocuses (croci?) had come up. I thought they were toast when the city came in and put in a new sidewalk outside our house. But hey, if you want to live at my house, you have to be resilient and the crocuses have poked up through the new dirt the city boys left behind.
They are spectacular and it makes me feel like spring is on the way.
A bit premature, since it is still January.
And I have all kinds of daffodils and tulips that are poking their green bits up through the yard, so there is a promise of some colour coming our way soon.
Happy, happy, happy.

Just a quick note.

Things are coming along, slowly but surely.
I find that one of the biggest challenges is maintaining some degree of patience while I bounce back. Which isn’t to say I am having great hairy tantrums or anything, I just expected I would be way closer to what normal used to be by now.
But I am getting there.
My hair is making a valiant effort to come back, and I suspect I will be looking pretty normal pretty soon.
My energy level is improving, though a whole day of work is still out of the question.

And then there is sorting through everything that has happened over the last few months and making sense of it, and integrating that experience into the current way I see my life and balancing it in my expectations for the future.
Does that make any sense to anyone who isn’t me?
I have no clue.
Basically, I need to figure some stuff out.

On a different front, I went snowshoeing a couple of weeks ago and I have some pictures I am about to put in the gallery, but I am having a wee wrestling match with the program right now and I won’t be able to upload them till I get that fixed.

On yet another front, we are waiting patiently for a little baby to be born into the fold. That will happen any day now. That’s all kind of amazing and wild.
More about that when it happens.

More as it happens.

Spike