It’s been a year since I was diagnosed with cancer.
Physical treatment has had several distinct phases which has a lasting mental impact: investigating so many options, deciding on sequence of treatment with highest probability of survival, planning location and timing, undergoing and recovery.
All this seems sequential, but we had to constantly go back to the drawing board and restart the investigation phase whenever complications arose. Flexibility and resilience were tested time and again. Every time the dreaded nights were long when pain and deep fears would well up from my subconsciousness.
Over time the predictable effects of treatment healed, and the unpredictable side effects took their place. These were mixed up with pain from unknown metastasized tumors. It was impossible to discern what was after-pain from surgery or radiation, what was a side effect of therapy, what was pain from a new tumor and what was a normal muscle pain or sickness related to lack of resistance.
Every time the mind had to be forced to accept by pure mental effort that what I felt was a recovery related pain, that it was getting better. I started looking for positive signs or media news even when there were not really any.
It was and still is a mental tour the force. This now affects my return to normal life. I find that my mind is easily distracted. I have difficulty to focus on my regular work and forcefully block work related stress from my mind. I am struggling how to stay alert and be ready for sudden growth of previously shrinking tumors.
I find that I am still in an alert state of preparedness for the worst. This is a fear which disappears most of the time into my subconscious. I become conscious of this fear when I have pain in places where I know tumors exist. The same is the case when I catch colds in the hollowness where surgery removed tumors from nose and sinuses. I now know that the damaged nerves and mucosal tissue will never fully recover. Simultaneous jaw and toothaches hit me very hard as a result of this as it turned out to be because of the damaged nerves.
The good thing is that the immunotherapy appears to work. Side effects are reducing, blood test results become normal and healing of radiated tissue has stabilized. Fatigue is fading and my old energy levels are returning in waves. Using this energy for recovery of mind and body is critical. I take long walks when I feel like it followed by a day of recovery from the exertion. I always go through a mental dip when I find out that such bursts of energy do not last.....
During the recent two weeks holiday I had no guilt feelings of spending energy on fun things like hiking and playing sports with my daughter. Recovering from it was a natural part of holiday laziness and my mind rested. No mental dips for two weeks, it felt great!
When I went back to work yesterday I tried to put in a full day of work and felt exhilaration that I accomplished it. However..... now I lie twisting and turning in my bed at night, writing this reflection. I must have the discipline to reserve my energy for healing and recovery. It’s a must in order not to give my cancer a chance to return.
This is what I have to use my returning energy for.
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