Coping

Everyone has stress and develops habits for coping when the stress gets bad. I get flack for mine and being an ass. Why? Sarcasm and dark humour. One of the first things I did was look up cancer jokes. That minimizes its power over me, also gets me called insensitive and makes others uncomfortable. But when I am with another person who gets it and can pass the jokes around it feels like this isn’t serious and I am not dying.

But I knew my mechanisms going into this and some days it doesn’t work, like chemo days when after I just want to curl up and die. There is also the anger at how unfair this is and hating all those people who don’t want to puke their guts out, even if they are my friends and are helping me through it. Thankfully my friends understand, roll their eyes, and go back to trying to help on those bad days. On the worst days yelling and bitching is how I cope and thankfully people know it and take no offense.

Back to dark humor which is much less depressing. “Can you have hamburgers?” “What’s it going to do? give me cancer?” that was part of a back and forth with a friend who gets it. Who then promised that if I die while he is in Japan to go to a Shinto shrine and pray for me knowing or else I would haunt his ass. We both study Japan and know anyone who isn’t honored in death will come back to haunt people. That felt really good joking and knowing life goes on.

But I had no Symptoms

I was getting an echocardiogram (sonogram of the heart) and the technician was asking me if I’d had any symptoms. I said no. “Its amazing how many people I see who had no symptoms when diagnosed.” We were talking about the cancer, this test was because certain chemo drugs can cause heart failure or weakening of the heart so a baseline needs to be determined.

But how can so many people, some seriously far along, have no symptoms?

I think I did have symptoms, and ignored them. Cancer starts so small, with just a few cells and then grows and spreads. A weird itch is just a weird itch, its just a little extra soreness. My allergies are just getting worse. I’ve always had headaches they are just a little worse right now. Its probably just stress. No, not my symptoms, but examples.

Then you have doctors seeing a patient with some minor complaint, so it must by a hypochondriac (had a doctor call me worse, several of them) and part of that is the odds.

Well, what about lumps? My main tumor is found my pain on urination or blood in urine, something I had from another condition I was already being treated for. It then spread to lymph nodes in my groin, which requires palpation in that groin crevice by the leg, the amount of force needed to feel it though I would never have. The potential spread in my lungs? Never would have found due to severe lung scaring from asthma and pneumonia.

I had symptoms, kinda.

Cancer Diagnosis

March 21st. Having fun and dinner with friends, celebrating the end of needing a catheter and my final surgery after years of work to be healthy. And my 30th birthday on the 26th. Excited to be applying for jobs overseas to get to explore, working on a new diet and exercise plan to get into shape. Was up until midnight doing 4 player snipperclips then went to bed, had to be up at 6am to prep for surgery. Damn was I nervous but also so excited. Had a nightmare but not really a scary one, just imposing, of thousands of black thorny vines swirling around me.

March 22nd. Get there early. Scared shitless there will be an issue with the paperwork and have it delayed another three months. Was scheduled for the past December but scheduling snafus the graduation messed with insurance. But once everything went through I felt so relieved. Waiting, taken in back, drop trow and change. I decided to have fun and took a selfie with my Darth Vader teddy bear (gift from a dear friend) with the caption “Guess where I am” just to mess with people who weren’t up to date. They put the IV in, eventually wheel me back and I’m out.

I woke up in recovery. Something felt wrong. The bed was wet, I was freezing, and felt nowhere near sore enough, and it didn’t feel late enough in the day. It was a 6 to 8 hours surgery, it did not feel like night, not even midday. Two nurses attended to me (as in in earshot for a solid hour), assumed I just had an adverse reaction to something.

Eventually my urologist comes up to me and she is carrying pictures. Normally she is so professional or mildly caring looking but this was so different as it was apologetic, it made no sense. “I have some bad news. We couldn’t finish the surgery.” Cancer never entered my mind, figured there was just some complication that will mean no Japan trip in May. It sucks, I mean really sucks, spent years working towards that, but I will live. Then she started placing the pictures on my bed, full sized papers all glossy and fancy, talking about a mass they found and couldn’t even push a needle through, it means nothing, except that one word. CANCER. Everyone knows and fears that word, we are raised from birth to, as its the ultimate death and death sentence, or so it feels. Then all the promises of how they would get me though it.

Then they offer me a phone and if there is anyone I would like to call. I would love to say I broke down and cried, that I immediately called my family and they rushed down. I did break down but I didn’t contact my family, what could they do, nothing. I don’t talk to my dad much and my mom would be scared shitless like I was then it would be me doing the comforting, and then with no way to visit being in a different city. I didn’t even break down properly, teared up, asked for my cell phone so I could get some numbers to make the calls (cells don’t work in hospitals.) I called the parent of one of my best friends as he was at work and didn’t want to disrupt it. Then sent a message to another good friend who had just finished a bone marrow transplant due to leukemia. Then another friend I had known through 2 quarters but would visit and not get all emotional. The last two were texts, only the first was a call and did get a little choked up over that one, the other two use exclusively text. Then I waited for a room so they could run tests.

Will stop it here for now as its a long enough update and this shit is tough to write. I still didn’t believe it was cancer at this point, was hoping for an error. Now I am thinking of my next cycle of chemo starting Tuesday.

Surgery Basics – Recovery

Congrats, now you get to start healing and ready to return to your normal life. This will be both very easy and pretty hard.

You will wake up groggy, probably in stages and not really feeling anything. Even moving will be hard to start with. Just rest, relax, and enjoy whatever blankets they put on or you want off. The most surprising thing you will notice is the sore throat, which no one will warn you about. “Surgery wasn’t on my throat so it shouldn’t hurt” but they intubate, shove a tube down your throat, to help your breathe while out. It will also fade in an hour or so, maybe three but its so little, just the first thing I ever feel when waking up as I try to talk.

I do not know if it is me or what but the first thing I do when coming out of anesthesia is start to talk and blather. “What time is it?” “How’d it go?” “Can I get something to drink?” “Why does my throat hurt?” “Where is Darth Teddy?” “When can I get up?” So it is annoying, then some more sleep. It will take a few seconds for your brain to kick in, hence why I have asked why my throat was sore more than once.

There is one nasty side effect I had the last time though, and it was the only time so be warned. Operating Rooms are kept COLD, and in recovery they warm you up with heating blankets before you are fully awake. Sometimes you regain consciousness before warm, and it will be cold. This is a bone chilling cold as if naked and buried in the snow for an hour but instant. It can leave you more sensitive to the cold, happened to me and had to force myself to reacclimate because I hate the heat more than I feared the cold. It will get better.

The next thing you notice will be the pain wherever they did surgery at. It will hurt, or sting, or maybe something that cannot be described (which does happen) and will figure it out. They will give you pain meds for this, which I try to avoid and just take the edge off. For me a little pain is better than the addiction and the empty filling those medications give, but also ties in with my stubbornness and self-reliance. There is not much to explain on pain, it is pain.

You will either be outpatient and can leave once they see you are recovering, or inpatient where you get to stay in the hospital for a while. This is a boring step and the most aggravating. You are limited in what you can do and need quite a bit of help, need to rely on others. And can’t shower, which is the most horrible fate imaginable.

Most often after surgery I have a 20 pound carry limit, or 5. In school that would be my backpack I could no longer carry and forget moving things or helping with the groceries. It also means a lot of sitting and resting, and when forced to read or game all day it gets old fast. Ne prepared to have to stagger to the restroom. The carry weight is to prevent your wound from opening or things tearing.

Eventually, maybe even a few days after surgery you can shower. Do not shower without approval from your doctor as that can cause an infection, don’t know the odds but why risk it. Sponge baths leave you clean but not feeling as clean or are as comforting, and never had any really good shower thoughts with them.

Slowly but surely you will return to a normal life feeling better than when you started. Just remember the sucks is payment for healing.