Back in Therapy

How unfamiliar, familiar territory can seem when viewed from a new standpoint. How different one’s perspective can be – like the difference between being in a train and being under it. Here I am back at Sweet Blog Therapy, the blog that tells the story of my experience with cancer and provided an outlet for all my agony. Its familiarity is comforting; I wrote here when I had cancer, so this is where posts belong when I’m fighting the bastard scourge. There is unfamiliarity though too – I don’t recognise the sometimes brave, pathologically honest and occasionally sensible person described in my previous posts. I haven’t learned the lessons described in each post, I haven’t internalised the wisdom I seemed, in retrospect, to possess. I am back in therapy because I am battling cancer again, and it seems it’s because it never actually went away. Hi again.

So here’s the story: approximately four weeks ago I had a routine CT scan and blood test, part of the screening that goes with following up chemo and cancer treatment. Approaching it, I was so over-confident I was almost cocky. I’ve been teaching fulltime (which is something of an achievement given recent history), exercising, living life, eating well and feeling pretty proud to have achieved the level of capacity I had. Not a cold or a sniffle, not a pain or a pang. I turned up to see my usually smiling oncologist hoping only for a good CEA number (I treat it as though I’m getting an A – a hangover from my neurotic school days). I should have known when he wasn’t smiling. Body Language 101 and Cancer Remission – I got an F in both subjects, it seems.

A lump in my liver and an elevated CEA pointed to one thing – carcinoma; the presence of a “met”, the pet name medicos have for metastases (changes in the cells) forming a lump or tumour (for us plain-speakers). So while my brain went into hibernation and everything else went numb, I saw my surgeon and heard about the treatment plan.

Both my oncologist and surgeon seemed pretty sure this “met” had been there originally, eighteen months ago, when the first tumours in my bowel and liver were discovered. This little guy was too tiny to be picked up by CT scans and PET scans, and not strong enough to register in my blood stream. Until now - that is, less than twelve months after chemo finished and six months after my last CEA reading  of 1.2 (very low and well within the range for people without cancer). This is an insidious bastard of a disease.

So the therapeutic approach for this little bugger was surgery, which was approached with every encouragement from those surrounding me. Much was said about how much better shape I was in this time around and how I might bounce back quite quickly as a result etc, etc. All true as far as that goes, and a very positive way of looking at things.

But my GOD! The state of my mind and emotions!! I can’t think of a time when I have been more deeply disappointed, dispirited, heartsick, desolate and afraid, and if you know my story you know that’s saying something (or else what is this blog all about?). Because reading over past posts, this is familiar territory: but now I have a little more knowledge and experience to go with it. How very, very dangerous it can be to already know what you’re up against.

I am glad on one hand that chemo has been excluded – it was on the table for a short time, but has now been vetoed. Here’s why – it didn’t work last time. It was supposed to eradicate the cancer and didn’t. It suppressed this sh*tty little met, which then carried on growing happily after chemo stopped. So, do you go with “Yay, no chemo!” or “Sh*t, chemo didn’t work for me”? So far I’m trying to go with “I’ve had surgery. I can’t do much yet. I don’t know anything more. No one can predict the future.” TRYING.

I have needed more therapy this time around; this has been a serious blow to my hopes and expectations. I’ve seen a counsellor, and it’s amazing how much of what she said was familiar – much of it I have already identified and published in my previous posts (oh, yeah, I’m so smart). But if I know my lessons, I just can’t feel them or live them at the moment. I am too angry. And disappointed. Because all the things I had faith in before don’t work. Not PET Scans, not CT scans, and not chemo. There’s a terrifying sense of a dawning realisation: what they mean by ‘living with cancer’. This is a lesson not yet learnt. Unfamiliar territory.

I would like to be seen as strong, intelligent, brave, practical, realistic and without drama, as no doubt many people would. I am afraid I am none of these things right now. I need more help than I did before, and I hate to ask for it. (Look at that - I still didn't ask for it). Things just got harder for me, even though my treatment is straightforward. Physically, it’s done and dusted. But mentally...? Please help me!*

I have to get my head around my new occupation: Living with cancer. Living with cancer. LIVING with cancer.

They wouldn’t call it a battle if it wasn’t hard.

* It can be hard to know how to help. Encouragement is good. Distraction is good too. Positive thinking is definitely in order. People helping me at all will probably spur me into action to defy my own perception of weakness anyway, if I know myself at all. THERE'S some self-knowledge for you.