the blurgh

When I was in high school, I worked part-time typing insurance forms for a pediatrician’s office. I learned a lot of terms for a lot of things, including an elegant word called ‘malaise.’ One of the doctors used it to describe any situation where a child just felt generally sick.

It’s been about five months since I finished treatment. On a high level, I’m fine. The scans are fine. I feel generally fine. However, I have noticed that my body is still going through a cycle that doesn’t have a name. ‘Malaise’ is too civilized a term for what this feels like, physically and emotionally. I call it The Blurgh.

In the immediate aftermath, I felt rotten all the time. Gradually I experienced brief interludes where I felt improved enough to notice a difference. But I would sink back into fatigue, aches, lack of appetite – just generally run-down and awful. Eventually the balance shifted and I started feeling well more often than not. But The Blurgh still comes around – except now it’s random enough to catch me off guard.

If I think about this situation logically, it makes sense. I know that the chemo drugs worked all the way down to my bone marrow. A completely healthy body would take months to purge all that damage and/or detritus, but that’s not me. I’m disadvantaged once by having Crohn’s Disease. Then I’m disadvantaged twice because I take immunosuppressants as treatment.

When I add all that up, I understand that I have to adjust my expectations and be patient. In a fundamental way, healing from cancer is no different than healing from a cold or the flu. But I don’t feel angry about having a cold or the flu. The Blurgh is hitting me differently.

I already gave the better part of a year to cancer. I’ve still got another four to worry through somehow, without seesawing between euphoria and anxiety too badly every time I get a scan. I’ll be damned if I want to give one more moment to The Blurgh – to that restless, achy, weary feeling that no medication, no mindfulness, no slouch on the couch will make better.