5 Down

So 5 down and only one to go!  Hooray!!!  You'd think I'd be doing cartwheels around my apartment.  (Ok, ok, I can't really do cartwheels.  I mean I live in Manhattan.  Manhattan apartments aren't really cartwheel material.)  Unfortunately, the chemo doldrums have taken over and have stopped my acrobatic celebrations in their tracks.  Superhero and I call these the bathtub moments.  The moments where the drugs make you so crazy that laying in an empty bathtub seems like the only sensible solution.  This happens with every cycle.  You accidently veer off the path leading out of the chemo cave and the darkness crowds out the light at the end of the tunnel.  Unfortunately this symptom isn't physical, but like all the physical ones, it gets worse every time.  The head nurse at my oncologist's office warned me about this.  In fact she sent me to a psychiatrist after my first treatment to help manage my drug madness.  The problem is, like most people with mental health ailments, when you're in the thick of it, it's hard to admit or even understand that you need help, or even have access to help.  

The other unfortunate aspect of the chemo doldrums is that your friends and family have to deal with your lunacy, which can range from sheer happiness, to uncontrollable rage, to inevitably a puddle of tears (this is when the empty bathtub comes in handy), and you end up hurting those whom you love the most by turning all the lemonade they give you straight back into lemons.  These are the moments when people throw their mothers out of their homes, break up with their boyfriends, throw a gift that was given in the trash, or in my case, stop answering the phone, stop writing your blog and tell all my well meaning friends and family to stop telling me the end is near because that doesn't help me right now (all of these are true examples).

The good thing is, just like all the other symptoms associated with chemo, once the drugs finally leave your system and the symptoms go away, the chemo veil is lifted and just as quickly as you as you wandered into the chemo cave, you find your way out. It's as if you wake up in the bathtub and wonder how you ever got there.  Except when you get out, there's collateral damage to clean up, and like any tough mess, there is always a bit of residue, which is where the second to last chemo leaves you kind of shaky.  You see, for months, you're in fight mode.  You keep your attitude up because you have to, and frankly, to think of the alternative is too frightening.  Like a dutiful soldier, you trudge on with the clear focus to maintain your body, ignoring the true emotional impact the process has on your mind and spirit, even if you are dutifully going to a therapist or psychiatrist.  And suddenly, as the light at the end of the tunnel becomes so clear, you suddenly realize, you are not the same person you were before.  Your vulnerabilities bubble up to the surface and the reality sets in that you've been amputated, sheared, scarred and worn, and now, this new person, who looks and feels nothing like the person you knew yourself to be, has to return to a life belonging to a different person.  

Now on one level, you feel stronger than before.  This experience quickly puts everything into perspective, and priorities line up right into place with an unusual clarity and order.  Nevertheless, at least for me, the experience has left me shaken, and as I walk toward my last chemo treatment, I question whether I am capable of filling the shoes of the person that I left behind on this journey, and even if I am capable of filling my old shoes, I question whether those old shoes would even fit.  Cancer has confronted every aspect of my own sense of beauty, intelligence and spirit and has challenged me to redefine how these elements come together within myself to make me the person I am and aspire to be.  Hopefully, once the chemo haze finally lifts for good I will walk tall in my old, even though I may wear them now with different accessories and a new shade of sunglasses.

Thanks as always for reading and for seeing me through my bathtub moments.

Straight from the trenches.

DT