Yesterday I had a bad day; I was feeling crummy, feeling sorry for myself. A pulmonary function test showed decreased lung function, which implied the strongest of my four chemo drugs might be causing permanent damage. Pulmonary Fibrosis. This meant a 12 day delay in chemotherapy and a new batch of unknowns after feeling so confident in my chemo routine.
Yesterday a tiny misunderstanding sent me to Chris' room with a scotch and a couple of comfort foods. Today, I woke up newly committed to feeling okay, even as some of the unknowns stubbornly lasted through my 'education'. Then, in the nearly empty infusion room where I get my treatments, I overheard the nurses talking about a patient. Apparently this patient came in for her oncology appointment, only to be told she'd been referred to hospice. This woman was only a few years older than me, also with children, and was apparently not expecting this news.
Hospice is a word people have used with me before. Somehow it manages to escape some of the awful connotations other words, like cancer, carry. It doesn't sound immediately like death, but it is. It is a promise from the medical community to help you be comfortable, but that promise feels condescending and insulting to those of use who are still fighting. Like I am. Like this poor woman who could have been me thought she was. That's why the nurses were discussing it; they'd had to help this woman bear the news, asked her if she wanted comfort care now or to go home. She thought the fight was still on, but her oncologist had already made arrangements for her surrender to the disease. In that moment her diagnosis went from being a protracted struggle to a slow submission.
I remembered all the worries I had briefly, before I learned how manageable cancer of the lymphatic system is. How confidently I get to tell folks that my cancer is curable, is already undetectable in my body. Even though the chemo is no picnic, and risks and uncertainties keep popping up, no one is asking my insurance for permission to make me comfortable. And I suppose that's the lesson; I am healthy enough to keep being uncomfortable until the doctors are confident I can return to a life pretty close to normal. I can wrap up chemo today and have a slice of pizza with my man, a snuggle with my boy, and plan the next trip.
I am so damn lucky, and the light of all that good fortune banished shadows of doubt and self pity back to the darkest recesses of my mind. Because I am the lucky one.
