i wrote a version of this to my friend armand today and then felt it has a home on this blog. i wonder how many of you have felt this way about bumping into cancer memories. please let me know.
at the grocery store today i saw a woman that i recognized but couldn't place her, and then she saw me and smiled and i saw her husband and OH MY GOD. from the radiation waiting room. two months of seeing each other almost every day. her husband has a brain tumor and lung cancer, and she and i used to talk and talk and talk while he was having radiation and i was waiting my turn. her husband starts chemo tomorrow, asked me for advice about how much water to drink, pain meds to take. it felt just so strange to have answers and to even know about chemo. it felt like i was speaking a foreign language that suddenly i remembered perfectly. and when they left, i sobbed and sobbed all the way home. my body just took over and shut down my brain. i had forgotten what it felt like back in that waiting room. i had forgotten just everything about what it was really like to be inside cancer treatment. i have tried to put all that behind me, and it's jarring when i bump into those feelings again. deep down i'm terrified of recurrence and going back to that life. it's just so normal now not to think about cancer at all and to just be alive and even allow myself to have "normal" feelings--like sometimes being pissed off at little things, instead of being serious about big things - like surviving.
it's impossible to explain to someone who hasn't gone through cancer treatment how it feels when you talk to someone else who has gone through it--the shortcut through the bullshit, the immediate understanding of what matters. all of us in the radiation waiting room and chemo rooms are strangers to each other, basically. but then months later, we can meet in a grocery store and STILL pour our hearts out to each other. i don't even know this couple's last name and they don't know mine. but we can talk about the most intimate details of our bodies without any hesitation. because it's a connection that skirts smalltalk and chitchat and pleasantries. it's like my conversations now with dr. rost when i have my follow-up checkups. although we do joke around about some things because, hallelujah, he's playful and wonderful, quickly the conversation becomes very serious about recurrence and what to watch for, what to feel for, what to be aware of. the seriousness in that room with dr. rost and even in the grocery store with fellow radiation waiting-room compadres is a seriousness i have to live with from now on. it takes me to a place that's so deep and so real, it's sometimes frightening. but if i didn't have it, then i wouldn't appreciate my new post-cancer life the way i do.
this photo is of a beautiful cabbage leaf i found on the ground at lattin farms in fallon, NV, an organic farm where you can pick the most delicious veggies and herbs and beautiful flowers. it's true, you SWOON when you taste their corn and tomatoes and watermelon. i do. on a regular basis. more photos of a recent visit to the farm here.
suddenly i have been hearing from long-lost friends and lovers. this summer i have gotten phone calls and e-mails that have reconnected me back to my past. very nice.
how i'm spending my summer: joined a french-speaking group that meets once a month! lots of trips to lattin farms to pick organic veggies! exercising every day (well, almost every day)! discovered two exquisite local thai restaurants! Upped my vitamin D to 2000iu/day (wheeee)! going to the state fair! enjoying my new camera that's a holga with polaroid back! of course seeing matt and molly quite often! almost back to 105 lbs again and feeling great!
and looking ahead: 29 days until i go back to pacifica to spend a week at the ocean (i will spend my 55th birthday night falling asleep to the sound of the ocean). 48 days until my oldest son and i arrive in paris for two weeks! and in the winter - back to caddo, back to texas and louisiana, i hope a visit to seattle and portland.
i hope you are having a very summery summer -
xoxox
4 comments:
Wow, you have a busy schedule! I am looking forward to being busy once I am through chemo and radio.
At the moment I am coming to the end of chemo and I am filled with fear about the cancer coming back. I know its silly but although I hate chemo and how it makes me feel, its a mental way of keeping the cancer cells out x
Isn't it interesting how strong feelings can lay quietly waiting for us to have a memory, a conversation, a dejavu experience, in order to come to the surface and be released.
You certainly seem to be living and loving life to the fullest - what we all should be doing whether we have battled cancer or not!!
I tip my "hat" to you!
That is a great post!
Love the comment about 'normal feeling - like sometimes being pissed off at little things' - I wonder how long I will be able to hold on to this feeling you have during treatment that the little things just don't matter! And the other side of it - how you really enjoy some of the little things (like the days the coffee tastes really good). Things you take for granted when you're in 'normal life mode'.
Sorry to hear you had a break down like that but it seems common that after treatment is over, most women hit some kind of depression or melt down that they really don't expect. I hope it passes quickly and you can get back to enjoying your life as you are!
Your plans (and what you've done so far) sound wonderful!
Love this write up. Amazing how our human capacity can feel with such pathos the exigency of a personal experience, especially when it's full of such suffering as when you went through. And yet after the moment has passed how normalcy returns us to that stage where we "forget" almost what it was we went through.
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