Do you ever find yourself, inside your own personal flavor of crazy, policing your feelings?
I do. Or, rather, I am.
I'm having a moment. Again.
After nearly 8 years and nothing but good reports and clean scans, I had my Chordoma follow-up appointment today. We breezed right in to the office, treating it like the formality it felt like.
As expected, there was no local recurrence of the Chordoma. Good news! But the nodule on my lungs they've been following has grown a bit. About a millimeter since the last CT. So, I should see a thoracic surgeon. This week. They think it's unrelated to the chordoma. But still, it might be something. And even if it's nothing (benign) they may want to remove it anyway. From MY LUNGS.
I took this news pretty rationally at first. The intern handled it very well. (Yes, intern, Why do they always make the interns do this sh*t? Isn't this the stuff that's above their pay grade?) He explained calmly that there are a number of things it could be. Some benign. And the excellent thoracic surgeon at the hospital will be able to explain more.
My radiation oncologist, when questioned, said we should ask the thoracic surgeon, asked about the kids, and high-tailed it out of the room. Not terribly reassuring, but was it alarming?
And then the fear and angst I'd folded up and neatly packed away for the past 8 years spilled out like an overflowing pile of dirty laundry. I'm not gonna lie, there were some tears.
But the feelings police got to work. What are reasonable feelings to have? Am I overreacting? I don't even have a diagnosis yet, for Christ's sake. Is it reasonable for me to be kinda terrified all over again, like last time? Does it even matter if it's reasonable or not?
Am I allowed to be un-stoic and unreasonable?
I don't think I played the part of cancer hero very well last time. I acted out sometimes and other times I checked out.
I did do well at being recovered cancer antihero though. My experience became a distant chapter in my story. Often I would think, "that really wasn't that bad." (Though clearly parts of it were BAD.) But it was a brief chapter and my lazy long-term memory served me well. And SO MANY had it SO MUCH worse. I was/am the lucky one. Even among fellow patients who are also doing well.
I didn't get anxious before follow-ups. Why should I? I had clean scans for 7 years!
Did I take things for granted after my recovery? Did I fail to learn the lessons? Sometimes I think, with my twisted history of having one thing after another crop up, without any prolonged "illness", that something is stalking me, trying in earnest to teach me a lesson. Something is trying to make me appreciate life more, or relish life more, or change my life. Am I missing the memo? Over and over and over?
Could this just be a brief, less scary, less painful memo? And can it sink in with me this time? I hope so.
Or is the memo just life?
Still don't know. But I'm going to allow myself to feel the feelings. Fear, terror, regret, sadness, despondency, guilt. They're influenced by my history, so in some ways they're more intense and on the surface. But I can feel them and it's OK.
To be continued.
