Resilience, part 2

In response to my last post, I have to admit: I would be lying if I told you this whole thing was sunshine and rainbows. There have definitely been some dark places along the way. The initial diagnosis was terrifying; finding out I had the C-word made me literally weak in the knees.

Once I accepted the diagnosis, my thought process was something like: Oh, here’s my first tragedy. How grand! This will make me a more interesting person! What a stupid thought. Everyone has tragedies, and mine is nothing special. It’s just meant a few months of physical discomfort and occasionally thinking about my own mortality, nothing more.

There have been days, usually when my chemo side effects are the worst, when the hostility is boiling inside me, waiting for someone to make a rude comment so I can respond with a snarky, “fuck you, I have cancer.” That would really show ’em. Jerk. And what’s even more frustrating is that NO ONE has made any rude comments or cut me off in traffic or said anything about my (for lack of a better term) hairstyle or given me any reason to lash out! Eventually the anger fades away with the side effects, but it’s so unsatisfying.

I’ve certainly experienced sadness over the things I’ve lost, especially my physical fitness. I long to run on a trail in the woods, or ride my bike up a hill. And my hair. It’s maintained about 30% thickness–I think it would be better if it were just all gone. Smooth and bald. Instead I have wisps of hair, and I can’t decide whether to shave it so it comes back all the same length, or to let the hairs that are there continue to grow. There have been some body image issues, not just from the lack of hair, but also from the biopsy scars. And the weakness. I always took pride in being strong, but now carrying groceries in from the car makes me tired.

These things will pass, however. As my fatigue passes, my strength will return. I’ll be able to run in the woods again. I’ll start biking to work again. My hair will grow back. My great tragedy will come to an end, and I will go back to living my normal life. This is really just a little blip in an otherwise amazing and blessed lifetime.

Resilience

I got my last round of chemo on Wednesday, and my attitude toward these upcoming side effects has been largely, bring it on. It’s not that I’m looking forward to feeling like crap, just that I’m looking forward to feeling like crap for the last time.

(I’ve also arranged to go in on Sunday for some IV hydration, so hopefully that will keep some of the crap-feeling at bay. My doctor is seriously awesome!)

A lot of people have been asking me lately how I have been able to stay so positive through this whole experience. Sure, the last round of chemo put me in a pretty dark place, but I have to agree that I’ve maintained a good outlook throughout most of this process. And my answer to the question, “how have you stayed so positive?” was at first, “I don’t know,” but after some reflection, has evolved to, “how could I not?”

I’m not sure if it was actual depression or merely teen angst, but I used to struggle with my emotional state on a regular basis. One day in my early twenties I read a quote, attributed to Martha Washington, that changed everything:

“The greater part of our happiness or misery depends upon our dispositions, and not upon our circumstances.”

It may sound dumb to attribute a major emotional overhaul to one random quote, but I can honestly tell you this quote changed my entire outlook on life. It was like I was liberated from having to care about anything negative, seemingly overnight.

(The quote, on its own, probably did not accomplish this for me. But it facilitated my making some changes in the way I have lived my life over the past decade that have contributed to a more peaceful state of existence. Much of this has involved eschewing many of the so-called conveniences of modern American life in favor of a path of more resistance. I sometimes refer to this as “embracing discomfort.” Perhaps I will write a follow-up post on this rather lengthy topic, or if you are interested, feel free to contact me about it.)

I read an article from PBS on resilience, What Makes a Resilient Mind, this morning that inspired me to write this post in the first place. I found interesting the idea that resilience, or the ability to cope well with adversity, may be more common than was originally thought. According to the article, much of the original research on trauma and resilience was based on people suffering from PTSD who sought help after a traumatic experience, so this skewed data set may have made it seem that resilience was a rarity. But newer research is showing that resilience may be more common than originally believed. To quote the article, “Dr. George Bonanno at Columbia University’s Teachers College thinks most people are actually quite resilient…he argues that resilience should be recast not as a clinical anomaly, but as a natural state of being.”

Think about that: resilience as a natural state of being. So long as the right support systems are in place, the human organism is incredibly adaptable. And, while the article mentions social support systems and I recognize these are important, I also firmly believe that lifestyle habits count as support systems and contribute to this, as well.

Had I been diagnosed with breast cancer at age twenty, before I had developed my healthy outlook on life, I doubt I would have been so positive throughout the experience. But now I don’t see any other way to approach it. Sure, it sucks to have cancer, and there’s a lot of discomfort that comes with chemotherapy. Should I sit in a corner and wallow in my misery? Would focusing on the negative actually help anything? I don’t think so. What choice do I have, then, other than to go about my life as normally as possible?

If anyone is surprised by my sunny disposition, call me up and we’ll chat! (Just not this weekend, because I’ll be spending the next few days sleeping off the last round of chemo side effects. Bring it on!)

Chewing with My Mouth Open

On Sunday, my upper teeth and lower teeth made contact for the first time in over three weeks. It felt so good to be able to bite down, despite some residual soreness. You see, four weeks ago (starting on March 11th), a bit of my gum grew up over my lower right wisdom tooth. This was quite a painful experience; I spent a few days alternating Tylenol and ibuprofen every three hours, with alarms set to wake me up at night to take medicine before the pain got bad enough to wake me up on its own. I even took a Lortab at one point–I didn’t take any after my port-a-cath placement surgery, yet this gum thing caused me to resort to narcotics. I even tried wearing a mouth guard to sleep to prevent biting down on the gum at night.

I eventually sought medical attention when my face swelled up and I felt tenderness underneath my jaw. The emergency room doctors (why does this stuff always happen on weekends?!) didn’t seem too concerned – just some gingival hyperplasia, probably a side effect of chemo! – and sent me on my way after some x-rays ruled out infection.

The problem, really, was eating. I couldn’t chew! I couldn’t close my teeth at all because doing so involved biting down on this huge swollen bit of gum. I was limited to pureed soups and stews for several days. Certain foods, like soft bread, were doable if I tore off pieces large enough to sort of mash up with half-closed teeth, and then swallowed them in a semi chewed state. Same thing with pasta, if the pieces were small enough that I could basically swallow them whole.

After finally getting my appetite back from the last round of chemo, I couldn’t actually eat anything!

I finally went to my dentist on Tuesday, March 24th. He explained that it was probably a bit of food that got trapped in there, and normally the immune system takes care of those kinds of things, but with chemo I was more susceptible to infection. He gave me a syringe with a special tip to squirt some antibiotic mouthwash under the overgrown gum. I was secretly, desperately, hoping he would just cut off the offending gum, but I knew that wasn’t really an option while on chemo. Instead I went home and dutifully squirted Peridex under the gum twice a day, lamenting the lack of instant gratification.

It didn’t really seem to be making any difference, until Sunday. I woke up and the gum flap felt smaller. I could move it out of the way with my tongue and actually close my teeth! The pressure felt weird, after three weeks of not biting down at all. And today I can close my mouth without having to move the gum out of the way at all. Things are looking up!