Lesson Learned

Have you every felt like a broken toy?  Today I felt  like baby doll with matted hair whose arm had been twisted off by some mean boy.  I was going again to find someone to fix me.  “Hello? I could use some help here?  Something isn’t quite right.”

Yes, it’s been over three months since I had immunotherapy.  Miraculously though, my body hasn’t just snapped back.  I’m left with an adrenal insufficiency that no one has still fully explained.  Except to say, here is some hydrocortisone, take it like this twice daily.  My primary physician didn’t want to meddle where another physician was already in charge.  He agreed I should see an Endocrinologist, but there wasn’t much light he shed on the situation. I was appalled. 

Never have I discharged a patient from the hospital and given them a blood glucose machine, a bottle of Metformin and said, “you have diabetes now, take this medicine, use this machine.”  Hopefully the Diabetic Educator dropped by to do a demonstration and give some details about the new diagnosis and how it would realistically impact the patient’s life.  At the very least they got to see a dietician. Who am I kidding?  No one has time to spend really educating, they are too busy trying to tic the right boxes for Press Ganey.

Cancer patients don’t get that luxury.  They take into their body hope in the form of chemotherapy or immunotherapy or radiation.  There is fear, uncertainty and no guarantees but there is this hope that something good will come out of any suffering or pain.

The phone calls still come to oncology office, weeks and months after the treatment is over.  “Help me.  Something doesn’t seem right.”  Maybe it’s the fatigue taking a toll on a career or eyesight that has changed or memory issues that weren’t a problem before.  The calls come, “I want to see the doctor.  I want someone to fix me.”  Sometimes it’s a preoccupation with every new twinge or tingle feeding the haunting dread, “what if this is my cancer again?”

It was confusing for me at first.  Once things went south in my treatment, I just wanted things to go back to baseline, which wasn’t a lot to ask.  My world was already small due to other issues.  It seemed like every time I turned around, I was having something else go wrong.  Of course, nothing was standard, I had to be special.  I had problems most people don’t have.  My sister reminded me that our mother used to say that anytime she checked into a hospital, the doctors wanted to take pictures because it was some problem they hadn’t seen before.  I see your heads nodding, “That’s Teresa, also wants to be different.”

It’s just asthmatic bronchitis.  It’s not the end of the world or an oncology issue. Feeling like a broken toy sounds dramatic, I'm sure.  It’s just something else.  The last time I had something like this was over twenty years ago.  I’ve been very blessed.  Other than an occasional sinus or allergy thing, I don’t have a lot of illness.  The coughing has been so intense, I think I’m developing a ventral hernia.  Not to mention I’ve had to graduate from the usual maxi pad for “leaks” to straight up incontinence pads because my sphincter is no where to be found under the load of the forceful coughs.  At one point when I was sitting in a chair, leaning forward trying to move this mucus and junk up my bronchial tree I found myself thinking, “This must be why the patients with emphysema and COPD sit like this.”  Yes, forever a nurse, even when I’m not working.  The steroid shot, the inhaler, antibiotics, and other medicines have kicked in and I’m wide awake and not coughing.  The only problem?  It’s 1:40 a.m. 

Lesson learned: 

It's normal to wish things could go back to the safety of how it was before.  It's normal to have times you feel displaced with your cancer journey, like no one really has a clue.  Just remember your fellow comrades in the cancer trenches have those feelings too.

Today you may feel like a broken toy, but the truth is  you have flesh, bones and a mind.  There is power in that truth.  Choose to fight the good fight.  Choose joy.