I had a chat with my CancerCare Counselor this week, and brought up my sense of frustration and unhappiness with having a colostomy that I mentioned a few posts ago. Again, it’s nothing extreme, just a feeling that persists even though I’m dealing with the mechanics of the situation reasonably well. I asked if this was something that needed to be addressed and dealt with right away, perhaps with a worksheet or something. She chuckled and said she did not have a worksheet handy, but could possibly come up with one if needed.
Instead she told me a few good things to remember. One was to remind me that it hasn’t actually been that long since getting out of the hospital. Processing my feelings is going to take time, and there isn’t a rush or a deadline. (However, she did acknowledge that if I was in my eighties and still deeply unhappy about it, the situation might bear more serious discussion.)
Another thing is that two things can be true, something Lori also reminds the rest of us about on a regular basis. We often think that our feelings about a topic have to be either/or. Either I’m totally adjusted and content with my colostomy or I am not at all, which I tend to assume is a failing that must be corrected. But, I can be grateful to it for allowing my continued existence, and frustrated at the change to my body. Also, frustration at having to think about ostomy supply levels on top of everything else in my life. ALSO, frustration at the way the weird caramel-coloured bag adhesive is absolutely ridiculous to try and work with if you don’t put it on properly in one go.
Anyway the point is that we can hold more than one feeling about something and that’s a normal thing to do.
Lastly we talked about grief, which is something I haven’t really thought about since starting this journey last year. We talked and I wrote, back then, about the sense of another life, another timeline where I didn’t get diagnosed and our house renovations and travel plans continued as expected. I’ve had plenty of time since then to come to terms, but now I get to do it again; because the pathology report being good news doesn’t mean things are ‘over’. Things are not ‘normal’, as they were before last May, and they will not go back. So once again, there’s a sense of loss to become accustomed to, one I hadn’t really noticed on my own yet.
(This sense, I observed, may have also been why the pathology results weren’t as exciting to me as to others I talked to; because for me the results didn’t provide a definite sense of resolution.)
This week I was energetic and confident enough to go with my family to the Manitoba Museum, and we had a great day. I’ve felt deeply grateful to be up and about as much as I’ve been able to, although the seats in the planetarium did get right up my stitching and I was happy to keep moving after the show. (On the other hand: Lori and I got to have dinner and see a play last night, and even though the seats in the theatre were ancient they were perfectly comfortable for the duration. How???)
All in all, it turns out physical and emotional healing take time. More time than I’d like, surely. Time, and sometimes treats for myself, and sometimes a good episode of Star Trek, and sometimes just playing an old video game I’m really good at.
