Getting Help

This Past Week

As expected, the side effects continued at more-or-less the same levels. In between I was able to spend some full days at my job. I will say that last night and today my side effects, by which I mean my trips to the bathroom, have been slightly easier than before. I’m trying to be patient and not over-eager for improvement, without sliding into outright pessimism. I’m not always doing that balance well.

On that note, Friday night and Saturday morning were actually a very low point, emotionally. So far in this journey I’ve maintained a fairly healthy optimism for the most part. I think that comes across in my writing here and interactions with people. I’ve had sad and low moments of course, but what I experienced the other day was enough to convince me to reach out for counselling this week; it was real hopelessness and anger, snapping at my family while simultaneously feeling guilty and burdensome. It lifted over the course of the day yesterday, thank God, but I think I’ll want some help strengthening my mind before it happens again. Especially before surgery and a potentially major overhaul of my self-image and capabilities.

Something I heard this week was about being open to trying things, without letting your own perfectionism get in the way. This is particularly timely advice when, as I mentioned, I’m approaching probable surgery and a change to what I’m capable of and what life looks like for me. This idea came from a really helpful conversation I heard this last week, suggested by my lovely wife, who is a fan of Kate Bowler’s writing. Kate has had immense struggles with her own cancer diagnosis and health journey, and seems like a pretty wise and compassionate person generally.

She also talks about the mistake of using bucket lists and goal lists to ‘solve’ the problem of a limited life, as though we ourselves, finite that we are, are problems to be solved. She suggests trying to find the richness and beauty of the moments we exist in as an antidote to feeling “claustrophobic” in bodies that decay and break down over time. That isn’t to say we should abandon goals and hobbies, but what I heard was not to aggressively pursue these things as though they’ll fix everything. I’ve commented to Lori that in the waiting between my first diagnosis and the start of treatments we were noticing a lot of small moments of joy, love, and connection within our families and lives; I think I’ve gotten away from that in the past weeks and it’s probably worth trying to notice those again.

One other thing that I wanted to note in this entry: I’ve already found that some things have become too closely associated with my radiation treatments, and now they turn my stomach a little just to be near them. These include:

• The little water bottle that I drank 325ml from, before every treatment. My son is fascinated by it so I’ve given it to him, because I realized I never want to use it again.
• The Fun Socks that I wore are definitely not the first ones I’m reaching for in the drawer anymore.
• I was listening to some music, and in a song I’ve listened to dozens of times, a buzzing tone midway through reminded me too much of the radiation machine and I had to immediately skip to the next tune.

Maybe this is what trauma is, I don’t know.

Looking Ahead

I have a follow-up with the chemotherapy doctor in two weeks, presumably to discuss how things went and what to expect in Chemo Part Two. And, I’ll probably write about how counselling goes. Meantime, I’m just tryna have some normal days and watch my comfort shows while never straying very far from a bathroom.

^{(if you’re wondering, my current top two comfort shows are Star Trek: The Next Generation and an anime about volleyball called Haikyuu!! )}