(no subject)
I really am getting better.
Part of it is just the passing of time, as my body heals from the massive traumas of chemo, radiation, surgeries, and assorted medical insults. (A friend teased that my graphic memoir, should it ever be written, could be titled "... and then I broke my foot.")
Part of it is my own hard work, though. Every damn day I do the walking, even if I don't feel like it. Every grocery run is innocent of bread, cheese, butter, crackers, sugary things and fruit juices. I miss orange juice, but it's sugary crack: there are a bazillion better ways to get one's RDA of vitamin C.
So I'm legit proud of myself when the Robot Overlord delivers my weekly summary, and all my percentages are up, plus I am more than doubling the average performance in my group (which is, women who use S-Health. An awfully broad sample. So to speak.)
The concrete improvements are in my energy levels, stamina, and certain aspects of mood and cognition. I don't get weepy and frustrated as much. Over-stimulating levels of crowds and noise are now tolerable, instead of intolerable. I have a much easier time following long technical conversations.
Walking to Gilda's Club tonight, I remembered the woman last year who declared that one day we'd basically forget all about having cancer. She herself had all but forgotten her experiences until it came back, ten years later, stage four. She was angry.
"I know you don't believe me," she said fervently. "But I promise you, I promise you, the day will come when you just won't even remember that you had cancer at all. It's true."
She's right. I don't believe her. My scars are too bold for that. I don't mean the mental scars, but the physical ones: the slightly odd volume of the reconstructed breast. The faded rectangle on my thigh where they harvested skin for a graft. The ugly red line that bisects the entire front of my belly, with pointed fleshy bits at each end. My chest port scar. The goddamn navel that's off to one side, slightly. And the adhesions inside my torso, that pull, that impede movement. I feel them every time I move. Every time I draw a deep breath or try to bend over.
It strikes me as highly improbable that I'll ever forget that I had cancer.
In a hospital across town, a friend lays dying. We were not especially close, but we were warm. At Christmas, she commissioned two portraits from me, for her godchildren. Earlier in the year, Anniko and I visited her in hospital, and another time when she was home.
Now she's in palliative care, unresponsive. Her shallow breath comes in groups of four or five, with a long pause before she draws the next rattling breath. It won't be long now. At least she will be as comfortable as possible, because doctors no longer have to be chased and begged into giving really good pain meds to end of life patients.
Part of it is just the passing of time, as my body heals from the massive traumas of chemo, radiation, surgeries, and assorted medical insults. (A friend teased that my graphic memoir, should it ever be written, could be titled "... and then I broke my foot.")
Part of it is my own hard work, though. Every damn day I do the walking, even if I don't feel like it. Every grocery run is innocent of bread, cheese, butter, crackers, sugary things and fruit juices. I miss orange juice, but it's sugary crack: there are a bazillion better ways to get one's RDA of vitamin C.
So I'm legit proud of myself when the Robot Overlord delivers my weekly summary, and all my percentages are up, plus I am more than doubling the average performance in my group (which is, women who use S-Health. An awfully broad sample. So to speak.)
The concrete improvements are in my energy levels, stamina, and certain aspects of mood and cognition. I don't get weepy and frustrated as much. Over-stimulating levels of crowds and noise are now tolerable, instead of intolerable. I have a much easier time following long technical conversations.
Walking to Gilda's Club tonight, I remembered the woman last year who declared that one day we'd basically forget all about having cancer. She herself had all but forgotten her experiences until it came back, ten years later, stage four. She was angry.
"I know you don't believe me," she said fervently. "But I promise you, I promise you, the day will come when you just won't even remember that you had cancer at all. It's true."
She's right. I don't believe her. My scars are too bold for that. I don't mean the mental scars, but the physical ones: the slightly odd volume of the reconstructed breast. The faded rectangle on my thigh where they harvested skin for a graft. The ugly red line that bisects the entire front of my belly, with pointed fleshy bits at each end. My chest port scar. The goddamn navel that's off to one side, slightly. And the adhesions inside my torso, that pull, that impede movement. I feel them every time I move. Every time I draw a deep breath or try to bend over.
It strikes me as highly improbable that I'll ever forget that I had cancer.
In a hospital across town, a friend lays dying. We were not especially close, but we were warm. At Christmas, she commissioned two portraits from me, for her godchildren. Earlier in the year, Anniko and I visited her in hospital, and another time when she was home.
Now she's in palliative care, unresponsive. Her shallow breath comes in groups of four or five, with a long pause before she draws the next rattling breath. It won't be long now. At least she will be as comfortable as possible, because doctors no longer have to be chased and begged into giving really good pain meds to end of life patients.