Getting back to "normal" with cancer

Getting back to Normal with Cancer

 

Getting back to “normal” after going through cancer treatments and surgeries is easier said than done.  Even though we as cancer patients are striving and focusing on “normal”, once you try to achieve it, it’s difficult and even a little scary.  After completing my first year of treatments and mastectomy I was able to get back to my normal schedule and daily routine, but I was just not “normal” yet.  I was still not whole again as I had to wait at least twelve months after radiation was completed before having my breast reconstruction surgery as radiation effects take a minimum of six months to a year to heal.  Not to mention radiation is a gift that keeps on giving, even years after treatment.  My hair had started to grow back about a month after chemo completed after my mastectomy just like my doctor had said it would, and it was coming in curly as well.  However, because cancer likes to play cruel jokes, my hair while it was coming back in, was coming in GREY!!!  Not fair!  I was only thirty-six years old dang it!!!!  Haven’t I been through enough?  Cut a sister some slack already.

            Just when you think you are normal again you are reminded that you were a recent cancer patient.  Things were getting back to normal and got hit with the monster flu of 2013 which turned into pneumonia and spent three days in the hospital, shocking the ER doctors and paramedics by not dying.  (When I do something, I really do it!) My blood pressure was 60/40, my white blood cell counts tanked, and my liver enzymes skyrocketed.  When the paramedics were working on me in the ambulance, they said that my organs were shutting down and I was in a pretty serious condition.  Not fun. In the hospital no one could figure out why my white cell count wouldn’t go up or why my liver enzymes wouldn’t go down.  They did get my blood pressure out of the dangerous levels, but it was still low, so I was required to have two more blood tests after I was released from the hospital to make sure I was getting back to normal ranges.  There is that elusive normal word again that us cancer patients are always seeking.  Sometimes I feel like Alice from Alice in Wonderland chasing the White Rabbit.  Lord knows I was always on the verge of falling down the rabbit hole of anxiety.

            I am reminded of just how frail and susceptible my body is to infection or the slightest illness and how things can rapidly go screaming downhill due to the cancer.  I am a vibrant young-ish mom and woman and I have always been a strong fighter and relatively healthy so this quest for normal is not an easy one.  For all my strength, stubbornness and fight I try to find the humor in my medical situation in which I will never really be “normal” again.  Like a soldier who is home from war, so am I dealing with the effects of my own war. 

            What is normal for a cancer patient?  Feeling normal, normal blood counts, normal hormone levels, normal life/work balance.  Normal.  Oncologists really seem to like the term, “new normal” and refer to it often with a cancer patient.  Cancer survivors are often faced with the new normal and can forget about the regular normal, what they previously knew as normal because after cancer you don’t get to go back to “normal”.  Your “new normal” consists of alterated blood counts, hormone levels, and a fear of reoccurance that never leaves, not to mention the routine doctor check-ups and tests that at the very best are annually.  Your body never gets back to pre-cancer “normal”, chemo and radiation have long lasting effects, some of which are life long.  I don’t mean to depress anyone, but I have to be honest.  Cancer treatments have aged my body a good twenty years, and it’s not fun and it’s not fair, but it is my new normal.  My new normal is routine doctor visits, routine pet/ct scans to monitor my cancer, pain meds, treatment meds, living with constant pain, anxiety about cancer spreading or getting sick, being a germaphobe, and physically disabled, not able to do and feel what I should be able to feel and do at my age.

            I strived for ”normal” during my cancer treatments, especially when the kids were little, they didn’t deserve not to have a normal life.  Even though cancer effects the whole family they were four and six when I was initially diagnosed.  I chose to finish my Bachelor’s degree in law while going through chemo and radiation in an attempt to focus on something “normal” and needing a goal and distraction that was not health or cancer related.  I needed normal.  I felt like a circus freak in public with only one breast, no hair, and horribly scared.  I wore make-up every day to try to look normal for my children and husband.  I tried to shield them from the horror and ugliness in an attempt at “normal”.  A “normal” person doesn’t have to strive and chase “normal”.