I'm trying to move on with my life after cancer. I have a biopsy tomorrow morning because I think it's returned. Expecting it to come back as cancerous, but not yet sure of what's next after that.
It just won't leave me alone. That's my main complaint about this whole mess. I was diagnosed with melanoma in January and since then I've been thinking about it nonstop. I'd lie awake at night almost believing that I could feel the tumours growing. After surgery I was terrified they'd left something behind, and I went back to my second surgeon to ask if he could possibly take out any more tissue before it became cancerous (he couldn't). Chemo was chaotic, stressful, and over too soon because my body couldn't make it through more than a week of treatment. I developed anxiety symptoms whenever something went awry; I treated every new symptom as life-threatening until proven otherwise. I was never sure how far to plan my life in advance -- should I sign up for courses for the next term, should I decline this leadership position, do I have enough energy to go out tonight, will I have to sleep it off tomorrow if I do go out. My relationships with others became uncertain. I wasn't sure who to tell or how much to share, so I just told everyone everything and let them deal with the discomfort. I broke up with my boyfriend after starting school again. My crippling depression disappeared when I was diagnosed; I shut down emotionally and never really came back.
Months later, it's still the same.
I still have trouble making plans and I delay commitment for as long as possible. A simple outing feels like a big deal to me, and often I don't end up leaving the house at all. Added to this, I'm still dealing with side effects from chemo even though I was only on it for a week, and that was seven months ago. I'm forgetful and often shy. I'm so tired. No amount of sleep is ever enough and fatigue comes at the oddest times. I completely shut down for days after my last oncology followup, unable to concentrate and overwhelmed by the ideas of interacting with people and even going outside. I still dream that someone or something is trying to kill me.
Some days I'm a shut-in, other days I'm out as much as possible and involved as much as I can be. I'm on the planning committees for two conferences in 2016, I run a student group at the university, I'm the vice president of another organization, I'm on a competitive synthetic biology team, I'm tutoring a couple of my friends in their science courses, and somehow I'm still unable to take a full course load because even four courses is exhausting. I'm supposed to be on a work term this coming summer, but now I don't know if I'll be able to do it now. There's a lump in my neck and my oncologist's body language said it's a tumour. I'm expecting to be in treatment again this winter, but planning as if I won't. It's a strange duality.
It took me almost a full year to find another young melanoma patient in my city. The other women in my 'younger adult' cancer support group have children my age. There's a newer drug available now. I want to try it, and I hate chemo but this is how we destroy the beast. In a week, chemo managed to do quite a bit of damage. I never used to get hangovers and now I do; I'm also now allergic to shellfish, and for a while after treatment I couldn't drink alcohol at all. My circulation is worse than before. I get cold feet, and it takes a long time for me to get warm at night.
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This is why I reject the promoted message that cancer patients are 'warriors'. It glorifies a war that nobody wins. I'm not a warrior, I'm just a 21 year old who is trying to understand what's happening and why it had to be so soon. I'm fighting cancer, sure, but what does that mean? To me it means internet, gaming, sleeping a lot, talking to a lot of medical professionals and old people, becoming a bit of a hypochondriac, making absolutely horrible jokes about this disease, and sometimes having an IV or catheter in my arm with a clear liquid dripping down into my heart. Sometimes there's surgery involved, but I don't feel much pain and I don't even remember anything once they knock me out. Other times the scans don't show any bright spots and the blood tests are normal. Then my life is a waiting game in which I fill the hours and years with other activities to move forward as fast as I can because I might be blindsided at any time.
So call me whatever you want, but this is a different kind of battle. This is not a foreign invader, this is part of the body rebelling against itself. There is no safe place to retreat to because the disease always comes with you, and as long as it's there it is trying to kill you. And until you do die or are 'cured' (although the doctors can never be sure if you'll be okay or not), you are branded a warrior who must continue to 'fight' (read: avoid death) at steep personal cost. Some patients are pressured into continuing treatment beyond the point where it would benefit them because friends and family think they must.
The fight ends when you are dead. You win by not dying of cancer. Winning just means you don't have to fight anymore.
