I'm Back!

During the last two years of cancer treatment, many people told me how brave, positive, and inspiring I was. But I said it was easy enough to be brave and optimistic because I wasn't feeling the severe side effects that some of my fellow cancer patients were suffering. I said, "Let's see how perky I am when I'm dead tired, in pain, and vomiting all day and night."

Well, I got a taste of that during the last few weeks. I have to admit I wasn't very cheerful or inspiring. There were moments of frustration and weakness. I was so physically weak, I felt useless as a parent, friend, human being. The things that make me who I am were gone - my sense of humor, my energy, my brain.

I couldn't participate in a conversation, let alone make anyone laugh or bring anything positive to somebody's day. I was frustrated that I couldn't talk - talking led to breathlessness, panting, coughing, and in the last few days, an intense pain in my chest. I didn't like sitting among people, unable to contribute anything, having to allow people to speak for me or do things for me. I felt like an invalid. A voiceless, powerless, personality-less invalid. Not fun to be around.

After one particularly difficult day, I sat down with a friend in a cafe - an outing to cheer me up by giving me back some semblance of a normal life. She had to order for me, pick up the fork I dropped, get up to get me a napkin, even cut up my food and put mouthfuls on my fork for me. I told her, "I think this is the beginning of me doing all the taking and having nothing to give. I'm sorry I won't be much fun to be with from here on." That was a tough thing to admit.

It was tougher to see how my deteriorating condition affected the people around me. Family and friends who had seen me smiling, laughing, joking my way through cancer for the past two years suddenly saw me sitting in bed, head propped up by pillows, tubes in my nose, coughing, gagging, and holding my torso in pain. And when they offered help, I could only snap at them in frustration or dismiss their futile attempts to help me.

The pain got to be too much, so I finally gave in and started on pain medication yesterday. It's working wonders. Today, I felt better than I have in over two weeks. I had the second dose of my new chemo drug this morning and I spent this entire afternoon marveling at how great I felt. The coughing, breathlessness, and chest pain were almost all gone. I ran up an entire flight of stairs two steps at a time, when simply walking up five steps just a few days ago left me completely winded and coughing.

The best thing about this revival in me is the way it's affecting my family and friends. I had left a trail of sad, upset, disheartened people in the wake of my frailty these past few weeks. Today, they were even more pleased than I was that I and my smile were back.

Cancer isn't a solo journey. I'm taking a lot of people on this trip with me, whether I like it or not. I've got to be careful not to take us too low. And those of you who know and care about me... you should know that you may not be able to take away my pain, discomfort, or sadness, but your very existence in my life is something to keep me going.