The sicker I get, the more of a stranger to myself I become.
Time used to be measured by teaching days and holidays. Now time is measured by
weekly infusions, daily neupogen injections, monthly xgeva injections, teaching
days, and recovery days.
I used to stride at full speed down the corridors of
academia and now I walk slowly. I’d like to say I walk thoughtfully but that is
what I’m pretending to do. I’m actually just concentrating on not making it
obvious that I’m completely out of breath.
I stand at the bottom of a flight of maybe a dozen stairs
and I wonder who this person is who is drawing on every last energy cell to
climb them. This is not the person who, six months ago, could run up seven
flights of stairs chatting and laughing. Now all flights of stairs are my Rocky
stairs. Climbing them feels like a mile sprint even as I know that I will never
sprint a mile again, or even jog one.
I am does not abruptly become she was when we die. I am is chipped away by the disease and
treatment.
I walk past a window and inadvertently catch my reflection
in the glass. I don’t recognize the ashen face. My pace slows down with each
stop and rest but my reflection is a time-lapse played at 100 frames a second.
The pallor from yesterday has given way to the waxen
bloodlessness of today. This illness has robbed me of the normality of adapting
to my slowly aging body. The morphing of childhood to adult to middle age is abruptly
set to fast-forward.
I still go to work and pretend that I can do it all. I’m
lucky to still be on the same treatment for 8 months. However, even as the
carbo/gemzar combo keeps the cancer in check, it weakens my body. My oncologist
keeps saying there are many more treatments. However, the unspoken words are
that my body will break down before the treatments end.
In less than two months, it will be three years since my
diagnosis of metastatic breast cancer. I have reached the median survival time. This is my 13th treatment.
I am and she was edge closer together.
We don’t need more treatments. We need better ones.
Amen to that.....we need an all out assault. HIV is a alot like cancer in the sense it mutates around known treatment protocols yet somehow they have managed to at least develop treatments that will allow a HIV patient to have a fairly decent quality of life. This continues to elude us in the United States.
ReplyDeleteMuch better ones... when I did Taxotere last year we had a set number to knock everything back. Now the goal is how long can my body/I handle the treatment and keep the cancer in my body in check (while hoping the cancer in my brain doesn't go crazy wild in the meantime). I hate that you are going through this, but I am glad your treatment is working. We need better treatments.
ReplyDeleteI've been at this for 7 years now (non-Hodgkins lymphoma) and it just doesn't end. The one thing I have learned is that now, today , for this moment, be here. And if you're well enough to enjoy it, DO!
ReplyDeleteAnti-Cancer club...you said it 7yr in, live moment by moment, there are precious moments left don't waste them, stage IV metastatic is not going to stop us from living Each wonderful moment we are living DO!!
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