Souvenirs from my Cancer ‘Adventure’ – Finding Resiliency
Down the rabbit hole. It would have been so easy to just curl up under a blanket and stay there. So easy to not face the reality of Stage IV cancer in my spine. So easy to not listen to what was being said. So easy to not get up again.
I have been asked many times how I was so brave, so resilient, facing such a devastating diagnosis.
It was painfully simple. I was not ready to die. So, that meant I had to do whatever I had to do. If it meant the 96 continuous hours of chemo, every three weeks for six months, so be it. If it meant the in-patient, high dose, high risk chemo, bring it on. If it meant the almost a month of radiation, get me scheduled. Was it easy? No. Was it necessary? Yes.
The one thing we clung to was keep life normal, or as normal as we could under these ridiculous circumstances. There was nothing normal about this situation, but being ‘normal’ or as close to normal as we could be, enabled me to find the resiliency. Every single day, the normalcy of getting dressed, of putting on makeup, of wearing jewelry, of being me, as much as possible. Even as I faced the chemo, the radiation, the baldness, the walker, the pain, each and every day we did our ‘normal’ routine.
Another way I buoyed resiliency was finding the laughter or irony in the situation. I looked at weight loss and baldness and decided ‘I’m down to my college weight and I don’t have to shave for the summer - Bonus!’ Or when I was in-patient and they set up my high dose chemo and it was one liter of highlighter yellow methotrexate, intimidating to say the least. I texted a client I knew well a picture of the bag of chemo with the note that said between the highlighter yellow chemo and the radiation, after this was done, I would glow in the dark and for a backstage manager that is value add, so I am raising my rate. She texted me back that ‘You’re crazy’. Yes, yes, I am, crazy enough to keep going.
But please don’t misunderstand me. There are times when my resilience fails. When I am a teary puddle on the couch or screaming my frustration at the skies, asking for answers for which there are no answers. But once I have had time to rest and reflect on what I truly do want, then I get up. And that’s the trick, you get up, again. And again. And again.
Our mantra started out ‘the only way through, is through, so onward’. It eventually became ‘Onward.’ The hard times, the painful times, the scary times, the frustrating times, the mantra is ‘Onward!’
So, Onward!
For more information on cancer and resilience:
· Resilience in Cancer Patients https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6460045/
· Growing Our Resilience https://www.pennmedicine.org/cancer/about/focus-on-cancer/2020/may/growing-our-resilience
