When it comes to this blog thus far, I have made deliberate, editorial choices to stay positive – and if not positive, then honest. That’s how I try to roll, because these choices help me cope.
Make no mistake, though: I am only coping. This process is very hard to begin with, and for me it’s made exponentially more difficult because of insomnia.
I’ve had very few nights of untroubled and uninterrupted rest since I was diagnosed. At first, the shock and terror of cancer itself just blanked out everything else in my head including drowsiness. This fog gradually subsided as my diagnosis became more refined and my surgery was such a rousing success. However, the sense of fog is still around me. If my mind is a stage and my life is the play, there’s dry ice all along the perimeter constantly sending these creeping, chilling tendrils of unchecked emotion.
These days – since I started chemo – I start to feel a fidgety restlessness about two days after each treatment. This is how I know the urge is driven by chemicals: It’s directly attributable to the drugs I am given. I try very, very hard to remind myself of that fact for the subsequent five to seven nights when I cannot stay asleep for more than an hour or two at a stretch. But seriously: I challenge anyone to maintain their calm under those circumstances. Human beings need seven to eight hours of sleep a night for damn good reason.
My sleepless nights start out in night-owl fashion. I sit on the couch in the living room, usually with something familiar in the background (British people baking greatly) while the cats take shifts in my lap. Eventually, when it’s time to dose up with whatever drug comes next, I will go up to the guest bedroom and take pills. I don’t sleep in my own bed because – for whatever reason – that mattress increases the post-chemo bone and muscle aches. I sleep in the other bed in the other room, which creates feelings of insecurity, banishment, and quarantine.
Then, I lie there. The cats take turns again, shifting and flopping, using my legs as a pillow. The storm windows rattle relentlessly if there’s even a breath of wind. Every hour or so, somebody drives or walks up the street – headed home after work, or a party, or a good time at one of the restaurants in Union Square. I lie there listening to the city and everyone else in it, living their lives, and most of the time I feel so demoralized and jealous I just want to cry.
I do cry, in fact, most often during the latter half of this post-chemo hell week. Lack of sleep really turns the screws on my emotions particularly: After three or four days of it, I am a trembling, short-fused blob of raw feeling. I lie in that bed and I try so very hard not to think about this cancer as a fatal blow. I try to remember that, as far as the doctors can tell, there’s no cancer left in me at all – that the surgeon removed every speck and couldn’t find any more – so this treatment is about prevention. Unfortunately, these thoughts don’t have the right kind of teeth at 3 A.M. when I’ve got days to go before I’ll start to feel better physically.
So: what actually does actually help, when sleep is so far away? In a word, purpose. When I can’t do anything for my body except hang on and coast, the only thing that helps me is to turn inward and ask myself, “What’s next?”
In the moments I’m describing, it does me absolutely no good whatsoever to think about how messy my house is, or how terrified Steve is, or how big of a gap I will have on my resume. When I say, “What’s next?” I’m not talking about these ordinary ground-level things that are obvious. Yes, when I’m done with treatment, I will mop my floors, Steve and I will take some sort of vacay, and I’ll go back to work in some capacity. None of those necessities to my life are in question so thinking about them doesn’t give me comfort.
The ‘What’s next?’ I’m describing is existential. I’m 48 years old, only halfway through my life statistically speaking, and cancer is reminding me that time is actually quite short. It’s also reminding me that I am blessed to have the advantages and resources to fight hard. I wasn’t taking these advantages and resources for granted before I was diagnosed. But I’m not sure I appreciated their overall potential fighting power.
The ‘What’s next?’ I’m describing is also immediate. I’ve had a lot more time lately to drill down into social media and read about the things that concern me. I’ve had a lot more time to watch the news – real and actually fake – and I’m mad as hell about the state of America. Even if I was perfectly healthy, thoughts of our flamingly fascist asshole President – and the Congress that keeps propping him up – would be keeping me wide awake.
Cancer has made me feel small, helpless, doomed, and stagnant. Cancer treatment makes my body feel like a punching bag, from both the physiological side effects and the psychic/mental trauma. At this moment I’m cancer free, but will I stay that way? Will cancer come back? If it does, how long will I have after that diagnosis? How long will that treatment take if treatment is possible? And, if it isn’t, how much of the time I’ve got left will be viable?
The answer to all of these questions is weighing on me during my dark nights of the mind. I have an idea of what my ‘next’ should be, I have determination, and – this is the crucial part – I have time just ahead of me, after treatment is over. This is the line of thinking that’s keeping me focused on the near future, instead of the shadows on the ceiling when it seems as if everyone else has managed to fall asleep. If a similar strategy might help you or yours get through cancer treatment, give it a try. There’s work to be done, the clock is ticking, and all you have to do is choose your challenge.
medicinal sausage 