Wow. I have to say that having cancer has brought about more change than I realized. I think I tried to partition the whole experience in my mind as a discrete entity with a finite beginning and end. It somehow made it easier to trudge through with a positive attitude when visualizing an actual light at the end of the tunnel.
After the end of chemo, I am slowly realizing that, while that visual was helpful, it was not necessarily realistic. My journey did not abruptly end when chemo did. As I have discussed before, there have been many after effects and pitfalls since and I am learning about new ones every day. Each one I try to embrace, while fighting the little chip on my shoulder that I have to deal with it in the first place.
Most recently, I got my first actual illness outside of chemo in the first two and a half years. Yes. It’s true. Now that I think about it, one little-publicized actual positive side effect of the pandemic has been that we all have had less of the regular sick season viruses, etc because we have been wearing our masks, not doing as much, washing our hands, trying to avoid sick people, and not touching our faces as often. Granted, some of these precautions (like hand washing) should not have been new additions to our routine. Nonetheless, they have all contributed to less routine sickness. Anyway, my point is, that I haven’t really been sick in over two years. So, when I got this crappy gi virus, it really through me for a loop. Number one, believe it or not, I wasn’t really used to being sick. ( I get it. That sounds ridiculous considering I just went through cancer and chemo.) Number two, I was that much more stressed out about the repercussions of missing work because the economic strain has been significant from all the previous missed work. Number 3, it hit me a lot harder than I remembered from previous illnesses. Number 3 is what got me the most. I am just not bouncing back as fast I think I should be. There are a lot of reasons why that could be true. One could be my loss of perspective on being sick outside of chemo. Another could be that chemo has left lasting side effects that keep my body from fighting off sickness as well. My kidneys are not working as well so I get dehydrated more easily. My thyroid is still dead so I get fatigued and my metabolism is altered. The list goes on. You get it though right? There are plenty of reasons for me to have trouble bouncing back from regular illness. So, I shouldn’t worry, obsess, and beat myself up about it. But, alas, I do. I get distracted and instead of doing things to help myself get better, I waste time feeling guilty about who I am letting down this time, as if I haven’t left enough people down with all the cancer stuff. It’s kind of a vicious cycle.
So, here’s the thing. What do I do about it? The fact of the matter is I am the only one that can do something about it. NO one is making me feel this way but me. The guilt is all mine. I have to make the decision to accept this one more thing about surviving cancer. There will be changes that last long after the cancer is gone. They are not my fault. They are not my punishment for things done wrong. They just are. I can chose to move forward…or I can chose to be held back by things that I cannot control. I say forward it is. Otherwise, my recent win was all for nothing.
Dr. Katz