I was wondering how I would get through 18 weeks of immunosuppressive chemotherapy without getting a cold. The answer is that I wouldn’t – not get a cold, that is. I’m still planning to get through the chemo.
I’ve always had psychosomatic tendencies. Suggest it and I feel like I’m getting it. If someone in the next cube over coughs, I think I have a sore throat. Someone in the marketing department has the stomach flu? Now I think I’m feeling a little queasy. After my dad’s heart attack a dozen years ago, I felt certain I had chest pains, too. I even had myself checked by a doctor, who had me wear a Holter monitor for 24 hours. It revealed no problems.
That last example is a bit unusual – I usually know better than to chase to the doctor on the mere suggestion of my fears. In fact, because of my psychosomatic tendencies, I’m usually pretty slow to “officially” declare myself sick. Not that anyone I know would believe it – my friends seem to see me as being sick a lot, although at work I almost always finish the year out with sick days remaining (yes, I’m the stick-in-the-mud who takes them when she’s actually ill). Nevertheless, my tendencies have caused me more than a little stress throughout my life.
And I also wonder if they didn’t help to seed this cold that I’ve been plagued with. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I know this cold is the result of exposure to a virus, and I’ve been around plenty of coughing, hacking, wheezing people. But I wonder if I primed myself to be vulnerable to the exposure. A week after my third chemo, when my white count dropped (per usual), my nurse made a huge deal of it. She seemed on the verge of suggesting that I not go to work, although she wouldn’t quite say it. In fact, I got the distinct impression she was trying to get me to suggest it. Little did she know that I had two coughing, wheezing parents at home, so what did it matter if I were at work or not.
Despite the fact that I had felt fine before my conversation with her, the minute I got off the phone with my nurse, I felt a bit of tightness in my chest. “Oh no, here I go again. Is that that a cough about to come up?” It was all I could do to concentrate on my job for the rest of the day, especially with the thunderous coughing of all my ill coworkers surrounding me. From then on, my constant worry was avoiding a cold. I used so much hand sanitizer I thought my skin would peel off. I hid in my cube and practically shrunk away from coworkers who stopped by. I couldn’t exactly avoid my parents at home, but I did don a procedural mask at times, attempting to block out their unhealthy vapors.
All my efforts were, alas, to no avail. To be honest, I think I was starting to get this cold before my last chemo treatment – my nose was running a bit, but the big give-away was the start of a cough. On the other hand, my fear of getting sick was running so high that I wasn’t entirely sure which sensations to trust. Okay, plus I was playing the “if-I-don’t-admit-it-it’s-not-so” game. I probably should have ‘fessed up before treatment, but I wanted the treatment to be on schedule. Besides, my pre-chemo blood work was okay, and my pre-chemo steroids suppressed the symptoms. So I had my fourth chemo on schedule.
Of course, after I got off my post-chemo steroids, my cold symptoms reemerged. So I finally admitted to myself that I had a cold and called the oncologist's office. My nurse sounded unhappy with me, like it was my fault for getting this cold. She’s the one who put the idea in my head in the first place! Her advice? Take my temperature every day between 3 and 4 PM and call if I’m running a fever or if my symptoms get worse. That and “force fluids.”
So I’ve been sucking down water as fast as I can and thinking about the mind/body connection. On one hand, awareness of my body and of something just not being right helped me get my cancer diagnosed while it was in Stage 1. On the other, hyper-awareness may have stressed me out and predisposed me to this cold. So what’s a poor chemo patient to do? I guess the answer is to focus on what is in each moment, not on what I’m afraid will be in the next. In other words, the usual struggle of my life: the effort to experience the present moment and act on its reality, rather than react to my fears.
Thursday, January 26, 2006
Monday, January 23, 2006
Skating on Thin Ice
I know this is a little after the fact, but I can’t believe that the US Figure Skating’s International Committee choose Michelle Kwan for the Olympic Team, bumping off Emily Hughes. Well, let me restate that: yes I can believe they choose her, but I don’t think that they should have.
All throughout the coverage of the Nationals, commentator Dick Button went on and on about how the committee “had” to pick Kwan, because of what she’s meant to the sport. And while I agree that Kwan has been at the pinnacle of US Ladies Figure Skating for quite a long time, she is just not there right now. We’ve scant evidence that she will be able to perform in a few weeks in Turin, the approval of the “monitoring panel” notwithstanding. I’d like to believe that this panel will be fair, but the trend in US Figure Skating over the last several years is to anoint Kwan the champion before she even skates out onto the ice. The last time we’ve seen Kwan skate was at 2005 World Championships, where she came in fourth. Since then, she’s had hip and groin injuries that have kept her from doing triple jumps. In fact, this recent groin injury has kept her from jumping at all until just after the Nationals.
Granted, Emily Hughes might not be able to get the job done, either. She is young and inexperienced, essentially a rookie on the senior level. And her long program was not stellar, including missteps and mistakes. But, Hughes competed this year, where Kwan did not. We know what Hughes has done in the past twelve months. We don’t know what Kwan has done in the past twelve months. And, quite frankly (and as much as it pains me to say it, since I really do admire Kwan), Kwan has choked at the Olympics twice before. Yes, of course she is a two-time medallist, and that is a great accomplishment. But when all the hype leading up to those previous Games was “it’s time for Michelle to receive her Olympic accolades,” well, it is hard to see her silver and bronze medals as anything but a let-down.
Michelle Kwan finished fourth at last year’s Worlds, behind the two women regarded as her biggest rivals in Turin: Irina Slutskaya and Sasha Cohen. Over this past year, we have seen both Slutskaya and Cohen skate well. We’ve seen Hughes surpass some observers’ expectations. However, we’ve seen Kwan skate in one event – the Marshall's US Figure Skating Challenge, an exhibition judged by fans, not judges, where Kwan managed only double jumps.
Is this really the skater we want to put on our Olympic Team?
All throughout the coverage of the Nationals, commentator Dick Button went on and on about how the committee “had” to pick Kwan, because of what she’s meant to the sport. And while I agree that Kwan has been at the pinnacle of US Ladies Figure Skating for quite a long time, she is just not there right now. We’ve scant evidence that she will be able to perform in a few weeks in Turin, the approval of the “monitoring panel” notwithstanding. I’d like to believe that this panel will be fair, but the trend in US Figure Skating over the last several years is to anoint Kwan the champion before she even skates out onto the ice. The last time we’ve seen Kwan skate was at 2005 World Championships, where she came in fourth. Since then, she’s had hip and groin injuries that have kept her from doing triple jumps. In fact, this recent groin injury has kept her from jumping at all until just after the Nationals.
Granted, Emily Hughes might not be able to get the job done, either. She is young and inexperienced, essentially a rookie on the senior level. And her long program was not stellar, including missteps and mistakes. But, Hughes competed this year, where Kwan did not. We know what Hughes has done in the past twelve months. We don’t know what Kwan has done in the past twelve months. And, quite frankly (and as much as it pains me to say it, since I really do admire Kwan), Kwan has choked at the Olympics twice before. Yes, of course she is a two-time medallist, and that is a great accomplishment. But when all the hype leading up to those previous Games was “it’s time for Michelle to receive her Olympic accolades,” well, it is hard to see her silver and bronze medals as anything but a let-down.
Michelle Kwan finished fourth at last year’s Worlds, behind the two women regarded as her biggest rivals in Turin: Irina Slutskaya and Sasha Cohen. Over this past year, we have seen both Slutskaya and Cohen skate well. We’ve seen Hughes surpass some observers’ expectations. However, we’ve seen Kwan skate in one event – the Marshall's US Figure Skating Challenge, an exhibition judged by fans, not judges, where Kwan managed only double jumps.
Is this really the skater we want to put on our Olympic Team?
Saturday, January 21, 2006
Bravery
All through my experience with cancer, and especially with chemo, so many of my friends and family have told me how brave I am. Brave? I certainly don't feel very brave. What's so brave about doing what the doctor tells you to do?
See? No real daring do here. Just following directions. Not blindly, mind you -- I made sure I had a good doctor.
I suppose what my friends and family is really referring to is my attitude. I'm not balled up in a corner crying my eyes out. Well, not most of the time, and not where anyone else can see. I generally like to keep those reactions to myself -- perhaps not healthiest response, but typical of me. I have to admit that over the past few weeks, my fears have been breaking through more and more. I've had trouble sleeping, and my mind keeps getting caught up in thoughts of the worst -- even though all my blood work indicates that I'm doing well. I think some of it is delayed reaction -- I worked hard to compartmentalize my fears early in my recovery, so that I could concentrate on building strength and getting better. Undoubtedly, some of those fears built up and have broken through now. I think I am also nervous about how well my treatment is going. I mean, yeah, there are plenty of unpleasant parts, but overall, the treatments themselves and my body's response have been going really well. I guess I'm afraid of the other shoe dropping. I keep reminding myself that these kinds of fears are natural, but it doesn't always help.
The fact that my third treatment was especially hard on me did not help in the "attitude" factor. It's hard to keep your chin up when you feel like crap. Once I finally started to get over my third treatment, I've been able to get my fears a bit more under control -- or at least less in control of me. I know my fears will never completely go away: that's one of the things I really hate about having cancer. I guess it is a good lesson in learning to live with uncertainty. Or a good way to let uncertainty drive you around the bend. Here's hoping I can keep viewing it as the former and avoid the latter.
Nevertheless, I still don't see how any of this makes me particularly brave. I'm just trying to get through this experience the best I can.
Pre-surgery:
Doctor: We think you have ovarian cancer. Here is the surgery we do for that.
Me: Okay.
Doctor: And have you had any ibuprofen in the past few days? I don't want to wait ten days.
Me: Um, maybe once. Okay.
Post-surgery, about six weeks:
Doctor: Your cancer is stage 1-C. That means it was confined to the ovaries. Here is the standard chemotherapy protocol. We'll start in a week or two.
Me: Okay.
See? No real daring do here. Just following directions. Not blindly, mind you -- I made sure I had a good doctor.
I suppose what my friends and family is really referring to is my attitude. I'm not balled up in a corner crying my eyes out. Well, not most of the time, and not where anyone else can see. I generally like to keep those reactions to myself -- perhaps not healthiest response, but typical of me. I have to admit that over the past few weeks, my fears have been breaking through more and more. I've had trouble sleeping, and my mind keeps getting caught up in thoughts of the worst -- even though all my blood work indicates that I'm doing well. I think some of it is delayed reaction -- I worked hard to compartmentalize my fears early in my recovery, so that I could concentrate on building strength and getting better. Undoubtedly, some of those fears built up and have broken through now. I think I am also nervous about how well my treatment is going. I mean, yeah, there are plenty of unpleasant parts, but overall, the treatments themselves and my body's response have been going really well. I guess I'm afraid of the other shoe dropping. I keep reminding myself that these kinds of fears are natural, but it doesn't always help.
The fact that my third treatment was especially hard on me did not help in the "attitude" factor. It's hard to keep your chin up when you feel like crap. Once I finally started to get over my third treatment, I've been able to get my fears a bit more under control -- or at least less in control of me. I know my fears will never completely go away: that's one of the things I really hate about having cancer. I guess it is a good lesson in learning to live with uncertainty. Or a good way to let uncertainty drive you around the bend. Here's hoping I can keep viewing it as the former and avoid the latter.
Nevertheless, I still don't see how any of this makes me particularly brave. I'm just trying to get through this experience the best I can.
Friday, January 20, 2006
Cancer
For anyone who happens upon this blog who doesn't actually know me, a big portion of my life right now is devoted to my treatment for ovarian cancer. I had surgery on October 5, 2005 (five days before my 40th birthday), to remove my ovaries (and all my other reproductive parts, as well as my appendix). Miraculously, my cancer was discovered in Stage 1-C, which is unusual, since ovarian cancer has very subtle symptoms and in not usually found until Stage 3 or 4. So while it sucks to have cancer, I still feel blessed that it was caught in such an early stage. I'm currently undergoing chemotherapy.
This experience with cancer has been surreal. Since early October, my life has been immersed in the strange, bizarre world of cancer treatment. It really began before October, when I began getting passed from my primary care doctor, to an ob/gyn, to a gynecologic oncologist, and also undergoing ultrasounds (like the bladder buster pelvic one, and the transvaginal, which is easier, but more embarrassing) and CT scans and blood tests. But those pre-surgery days were just a taste of what was to come. And even though I became increasingly convinced that I did indeed have cancer (I have a family history of the disease), I could still hold out a bit of hope that my gut feeling was wrong.
But on October 5th, my life changed. It was now certain: I had ovarian cancer. I can't say I was shocked, but I certainly was distraught. I wasn't even quite 40. How could this happen? One of my surgeons told me after my surgery that he believed the cancer was at an early stage, and that "we did a very good thing today." And the final pathology report bore out his optimism, with the cancer confined to my ovaries, and no cancer anywhere else. And at least by the time I officially knew it was cancer, the stuff was already out of me.
Nevertheless, my life has changed. First, of course, was the recovery from surgery. I was in the hospital for four days, which felt much longer than that. (At some point, I may write about my hospital experiences.) Then home to recover. With such extensive surgery, I was closed internally in layers. On the outside, I had an eight-inch incision, closed with surgical staples. Who new they looked and functioned just like office staples? I little bigger, and no, the ends don't fold under, but they are metal staples. They kind of freaked me out, and I could hardly wait to have them removed.
Everything was a struggle - getting out of bed in the morning, getting into bed at night, getting up out of my recliner, going to the bathroom, washing up, changing clothes. I haven't napped so much since I was a baby. And while I've heard it said that our abdominal muscles are key to much of our movement, I never really realized how true it is until after my surgery.
Recovery from surgery seemed to take forever, although I did make steady progress. Sometimes my fears about cancer broke through, but during the post-surgical phase of my recovery, I did a pretty good job of what my minister called "compartmentalizing." That is, dealing with the situation at hand and saving the rest for later. And so I got more familiar with daytime television than I ever wanted to (thank goodness for cable), began to walk around the house as much as I could, and rested whenever my body said I had to. So slowly, but surely, my recovery from the surgery progressed as it should.
This experience with cancer has been surreal. Since early October, my life has been immersed in the strange, bizarre world of cancer treatment. It really began before October, when I began getting passed from my primary care doctor, to an ob/gyn, to a gynecologic oncologist, and also undergoing ultrasounds (like the bladder buster pelvic one, and the transvaginal, which is easier, but more embarrassing) and CT scans and blood tests. But those pre-surgery days were just a taste of what was to come. And even though I became increasingly convinced that I did indeed have cancer (I have a family history of the disease), I could still hold out a bit of hope that my gut feeling was wrong.
But on October 5th, my life changed. It was now certain: I had ovarian cancer. I can't say I was shocked, but I certainly was distraught. I wasn't even quite 40. How could this happen? One of my surgeons told me after my surgery that he believed the cancer was at an early stage, and that "we did a very good thing today." And the final pathology report bore out his optimism, with the cancer confined to my ovaries, and no cancer anywhere else. And at least by the time I officially knew it was cancer, the stuff was already out of me.
Nevertheless, my life has changed. First, of course, was the recovery from surgery. I was in the hospital for four days, which felt much longer than that. (At some point, I may write about my hospital experiences.) Then home to recover. With such extensive surgery, I was closed internally in layers. On the outside, I had an eight-inch incision, closed with surgical staples. Who new they looked and functioned just like office staples? I little bigger, and no, the ends don't fold under, but they are metal staples. They kind of freaked me out, and I could hardly wait to have them removed.
Everything was a struggle - getting out of bed in the morning, getting into bed at night, getting up out of my recliner, going to the bathroom, washing up, changing clothes. I haven't napped so much since I was a baby. And while I've heard it said that our abdominal muscles are key to much of our movement, I never really realized how true it is until after my surgery.
Recovery from surgery seemed to take forever, although I did make steady progress. Sometimes my fears about cancer broke through, but during the post-surgical phase of my recovery, I did a pretty good job of what my minister called "compartmentalizing." That is, dealing with the situation at hand and saving the rest for later. And so I got more familiar with daytime television than I ever wanted to (thank goodness for cable), began to walk around the house as much as I could, and rested whenever my body said I had to. So slowly, but surely, my recovery from the surgery progressed as it should.
Wednesday, January 18, 2006
My First Post
This is my initial post to my new blog. I don't really have anything to say right now, but I'll be back later!
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