I was diagnosed with a rare and an aggressive form of cancer last year and am currently going through chemotherapy.
If you, your friend or someone in your family has had a cancer diagnosis, I want to share with you, to NOT BE AFRAID. Paradoxically, this transition in your life that cancer has brought about may, in fact, be a time of a great inner empowerment. I hope I can help to alleviate your fears (or sheer terror as I had) and persuade you that dealing with your cancer can actually be a positive experience. This word “positive” however, is a little overused; when people say, “think positively,” it should not mean that the cancer will go away and never return, because nobody knows the future, but rather, that you could have a joyous and enriched life today, and deal with the cancer without stress or fear.
When I stopped looking at the future, the “now” became much more valid – that’s the positive part – and the length of my life became irrelevant. Every day became enhanced.
Cancer has forced me to ultimately have a serious discussion with myself about the purpose of my life, and I believe that it is not how long I live, but how I choose to live.
One way to alleviate the fear is to understand the process, and it begins by meeting your cancer doctor at the cancer clinic.
The Pre-Chemo Meeting
On a raw damp January day, I nervously drove to the cancer clinic, a non-descript yellow brick building behind the Jubilee Hospital. It loomed under a low overcast sky as I drove into the parking lot scattered with discarded masks that were frozen into dirty patches of gritty melting ice or floating in oily mud puddles. The saturated grassy edge was littered with Tim Hortons cups and Subway sandwich wrappers which clung to the dormant shrubs.
Alas, I forced myself to cross the wet pavement and go through the glass doors into the little salt-stained lobby. There’s a very jovial volunteer to greet you who will give you a clean mask and tell you a joke, but I was far too stressed to respond, and I struggled with the mask because my hands were trembling. In fact, I could barely even speak to the receptionist, who gave me a parking permit which expired in six months. “Well,” I thought, “six months – that’s promising.”
With legs like lead, I lumbered up the spiral staircase to the second floor and I remember thinking how much light there was on those stairs, like a stairway to heaven. There was a waiting room at the top, and the reality sank in when I saw the directional signs on the wall for the chemo and radiation areas. People were sitting silently on blue vinyl chairs, some with no hair, some with turbans, some holding the hand of a friend or family member, some with a tired overused paperback novel sticking out of their purse. I sat there like a zombie, staring out the huge window at that gravelly parking lot below – I could see my car. I got up and walked around and looked at a beautiful pair of exquisitely beaded First Nation moccasins in a glass case.
I thought about leaving, just forgetting this whole damn business. “I had my surgery; I had a scan in the huge spinning machine that resembled a giant sprinkles donut – almost psychedelic, like something out of a fun house at a country fair, and it boomed in a computerized voice, “Hold your breath now. … Release your breath.”
“What more do these people want?!” I asked myself, albeit selfishly, but I was distraught and still couldn’t believe I had cancer (sometimes I still don’t believe it). I could have walked right out, down those spiral stairs, passed that happy volunteer and straight back to my car in the dirty lot, but my little voice, the only thing I can truly rely on, and which never lies, told me to sit down and wait.
I was taken down a long dim hallway with a polished beige floor (everything is polished but dim) and was weighed and my height measured. The girl said I was five-foot-six which was quite incorrect. I am almost five-foot-eight and she told me that older people shrink! Well, that just got me all riled up and I forgot all about my cancer and thought more about justice. “Last I checked,” I said, “a month ago, I was five-foot-eight (almost) and I know I have not shrunk two inches in a month unless having a total hysterectomy including the ovaries shortens your height.” (Actually, maybe it does!) She gazed at me with a quizzical expression. Then I added, “and I’m not old!” (Although, a newly official senior, I love the 10 per cent discounts at Home Hardware on Tuesdays, and the half price car wash on Thursdays, and there’s a discount as well at the Hockey Hall of Fame!) We re-measured and made peace with a compromise of five-foot-seven and I apologized. “I am not myself,” I said, my head lowered.
I sat in a little examining room and suddenly had the urge to zip my coat right up to my chin, and tie my boot laces tightly at my ankles – to make myself impenetrable – and then hang onto the arms of the chair as if I was to blast off into space. The doctor came in, and I stopped thinking about cancer for a second, and thought, “Hmmm, what a good looking guy!” Then, I listened to the bad news, two years at most if the cancer returns (better clean out the basement I thought, and what am I going to do with those 10 totes of photographs?).
The doctor explained the chemo treatments I was to have, although it was made clear that it was my choice. He then reviewed the side effects including hair loss, mouth sores and all sorts of weird tingly sensations, but they have to tell you the worst and the side effects may not even happen to you – the new medications are amazing – I never missed a meal, an errand or a dog walk, kept the house clean and the hummingbird feeder fresh and the bird baths washed, but more about that later. Becoming hotter and hotter, and feeling as if my head was going to blow off, I finally said, as if I was invited out on some boring coffee date, “I’ll let you know if I can make it, I might be out of town (forever).” The doctor calmly nodded and I noticed that he had extremely long legs which seemed to stretch half way across the tiny room. I think I literally ran down the dim polished beige corridor, through the waiting room, and down the spiral staircase and finally out the glass doors and into the sad parking lot where a cold drizzle had begun from the low looming leaden sky, and only then did I unzip my coat.
The Decision
It was an agonizing decision, six treatments, three weeks apart, making mouthwashes with baking soda, taking steroids, bald in the spring. I talked to many people, and I’d boldly hint, “If someone would just say, ‘Anny I love you and I don’t want you to die,’ ” I would do the chemo, but most people answered, “Ahh yes, I see what you mean,” which was no help at all! The convincing moment however was when my doctor actually said “Anny, I want you to live” — such a simple sentence which made all the difference. And then she said, “Don’t think of chemo as a bad thing, but think of chemo as a means to kill the cancer and prolong your life by 10 years”.
“That’s it?” I thought, “10 years? But I’m just entering my Golden Years,” (and Mum was right, it’s not for sissies) but I called that dishy long-legged doctor in his little dim office and said, “OK, let’s do it.”
The First Day of Chemo
I was so nervous on my first day of chemo that the nurse had to take my arm. The waiting area for chemo is small, right across the hall from the little pharmacy, and the vinyl chairs are purple, not blue as in the larger waiting room. My friend Marj drove me on the first day and as I got out of her car I murmured, “I’m terrified Marj” and she patted my hand.
I had packed a big lunch because I was told I would be there most of the day – chicken salad sandwiches, a banana, and blueberry muffins with butter, plus a thermos of soup and a thermos of tea. I also brought a highly entertaining book called Great Tales From English History and all the medications that I was told to acquire. These little pills are purchased from a regular pharmacy, not the pharmacy at the cancer clinic, and I found that to be very comforting, the only normal thing through this entire process – the grocery store pharmacy. The medications for cancer didn’t seem as intimidating when they sat in my basket among the tuna cat food treats, two candles, and a seven dollar lettuce!
It was all quite surreal, sitting in the little waiting room on a purple vinyl chair thinking, “me with cancer, sitting here waiting for chemotherapy.” I just couldn’t believe it. At your allotted time, a nice nurse comes out and takes you down the polished beige hall and through two enormous swinging doors, and behind those doors is a whole new world. The room is brightly lit, spacious and very quiet. Around the room are huge puffy blue chairs on what look like big cumbersome training wheels. I sat in my big assigned reclining chair with the big wheels beside a window where outside was a dull white sky and the bare branches of a tall tree shrouded in a light winter mist.
The nurses all wear large floppy light blue paper smock-like gowns. What a team they are, serene and seemingly gliding and flitting among the patients, liked busy angels, checking our IVs, giving us our little pills, and the best of all, wrapping us in heated flannel blankets!
I actually began to relax. With my feet elevated the first little bag of liquid drug dripped slowly into my arm. I thought this was all pretty nice — a day off, wrapped in a warm flannel cocoon, a big lunch by my side and my book, and then, the best part, a wonderful sleepy drug to ward off allergic reactions to the chemo and which sent me off into a happy dreamy sleep for two hours.
When I woke up, I had a little think and then a very simple epiphany.
I felt as if I had overcome the biggest challenge of my life – accepting the cancer, deciding to tackle the cancer, and overcoming the fear of the chemo treatment. I felt as if I was king of my world, in complete control, and ready to meet my maker head-on if that was my destiny, but for now, the moments of each day were the important thing.
To take this kind of control during a time of grave uncertainty is empowering. And it was at that moment when the fear of my demise and the length of my life became completely irrelevant.
And this feeling has only become stronger and stronger, every day carries a deep gratification, even while dusting, doing my taxes, or trying to renew my drivers license on the computer.
Side Effects
Two weeks after my first chemo treatment, I was teaching a grammar class on verb tenses.
I had had very few side effects and no nausea thanks to those amazing little tablets.
I had a lovely keen class in a light and airy classroom, and I reached up to scratch my head and a huge clump of hair fell out! So here is how I handled it (they call this “a teachable moment”):
Present Continuous Verb Tense: My hair is falling out.
Simple Past Verb Tense: My hair fell out.
Simple Future Verb Tense: My hair will fall out, and I will be bald. I will buy a toque.
The next day, all my students wore toques! I gave them all an A+.
The completion of the hair loss occurred in bed with my dear rescue cat Blackie. My scalp became very itchy and tender so one night in my bath, I rubbed coconut oil into the last remaining bits of wispy strands to sooth the irritation. Blackie thought that was pretty delicious. His rough little tongue cleaned off my entire head throughout the night (and it actually felt pretty nice). I woke up to a totally bald head and a very sleek cat.
Apart from hair loss, the most noticeable side effects were tiredness a few days after the treatment, and a bit of brain fog (not sure if that was from chemo though). This is a perfect excuse to lie on the sofa and watch your favourite movies, documentaries, cooking programs, or listen to music and catch up on your reading. Your best friends will bring you soup and bouquets of tulips, and if you feel a bit unsteady, they will walk with you around the block or along the sea or wherever you like to go. My dear friends have been there for me and yours will be as well. It means a tremendous amount to both you and to them. Two of my friends and I started the chemo book club – we eat pastries and I read an old English classic aloud. We hope to finish it by the end of chemo.
You may not feel like yourself on certain days, but just relax and the feeling will pass, and little walks, warm baths, and tea will help, and of course, if you live with one, a pet. My old mutt Archie hasn’t left my side.
There’s a nurse you can call if you are worried about anything.
On the first day of chemo, you are given numerous papers to read in your own special private red paper file. There is a sheet of tips and suggestions to do at home. For example, no “deep kissing”, and you can do your dishes “as you normally do.” It also advises you to keep your medication away from pets, however, one evening I had an incident. Archie had a sore leg so he was on pain killers, and his little yellow capsule looked exactly like one of my anti-nausea medications. Every night, I lined up our medicines, his in his sausage and mine in a banana (because we both have gag reflexes).
By mistake though, I put his pill in my banana and put my pill in his sausage, and only realized it at the last minute.
Another side effect is due to the steroid medication. You might feel as if you could throw a shot-put right out of the stadium in the Olympics, and you may not sleep, and there can be an enormous increase in appetite. One night at two in the morning, I ate an entire rotisserie chicken and a carton of caramel ice-cream. Then I deep cleaned the kitchen, vacuumed the car, and lugged all those totes of photographs up to sort from the basement all before 5 a.m.
If you are facing a cancer diagnosis, know that there is nothing to fear and that the days can still be joyful; the chemo treatments and everyone at the cancer clinic are there to help you; be proud of your courage and face the challenge head-on, for it just may be the most monumental intimate task of your life, and ultimately, the most rewarding and empowering.
