Cancer changes you. I feel my cancer is a relatively small thing on the cancer barometer. There are many more people going through much tougher battles. And it may sound like a cliche, but no matter what cancer you have, it really does affect your awareness of mortality and how quickly your situation can change.
Anyone that knows me knows I love sunshine, July and August heat, and everything else that goes along with summer (except maybe mosquito bites and sweatiness in areas you don't want to sweat in, but I have less to sweat there now). So, I have been a little down the past few days. Tomorrow will be one month since all this began. The part that is really bothering me is that is a month, the last month of summer, that I have spent in doctor's offices, in magnetic testing tube thingys, in an operating room, dropping my pants out of habit anytime someone in a white coat and a name tag walks by (which makes for an awkward moment at Wal-Mart's vision center), and sitting around watching TV (with and without ice on my crotch). It really drove that fact home with the cold snap we have gotten here the past few days. Today, I switched the heat pump from AC to heat. I keep saying I am not going to let cancer affect me or change my plans, but it has robbed me. It has robbed me of a month of summer. Before I am able to get outside again and do yard work or work on my endless projects in my shop, the summer is gone. I am actually very perturbed about it. I wish I knew where cancer's ass was so I could kick it. Unfortunately, since I had a 2cm tumor, cancer's ass was probably right next to the rest of my testicle, so besides not being limber enough to kick it, I am not inclined to kick myself in that area just to teach cancer a lesson.
One of our rites of Autumn here is visiting the neighboring county's fair. It is a glorious marathon of trying to eat one of everything that the "carnies" thought to fry and charge six dollars for. Since all this started, my stomach issues have been completely unpredictable. We were there for a very short time when my stomach decided it wanted to go home. Usually that doesn't happen until at least after the corndog and the deep fried Oreo's. We didn't even make over to those stands yet before the gastric uprising commenced! So, it hits me again. It's that (insert string of profanities here) cancer that is affecting my life again! And the part that really sucks, is you don't know what to do about it. You want to lash out, but who do you lash out at? You quickly go from being thrown into a rage, to being thrown into a depression. I see on message boards, that for some reason us seriously ill people love reading (including me), about dealing with family members that are angry. And it's easy to see how that happens. Who is healthier, the ones that blow up on everything and everybody, or the ones like me that turtle up and cry a little to themselves when no one is watching? I don't know the answer. But I do know that by not blowing up on my wife, I can still give the dying-cancer-boy-look with my eyes and sometimes get her to bring me a glass of ice for my Pepsi (although she is quickly becoming immune to that look). I don't know if the ragers get that luxury. It's hard to get someone to bring you Pepsi ice, when no one comes around anymore.
And as for the dying-cancer-boy-look, yeah most of it is just for fun and profit, but there is a lot more seriousness behind it than I would like to admit. My family has only taken one true family vacation. That was to Walt Disney World fifteen years ago. Don't get me wrong, we traveled a lot, mainly moving or to see family. And if there was something along the way that was interesting, we were allowed to look out the window as we went by eating our fast food in the car to save time. And it's not that there is anything wrong with that, I would just like to have another family vacation. After fifteen years, we have forgotten most of the reasons we hate traveling with each other, so it's about time for a little reminder. "You never know if we will get another chance." I would say as I try to urge our clan to agree to a trip, alluding to the potpourri of medical maladies floating around our gene pool. And I'll be perfectly honest and say, I didn't think that I was the odds on favorite to be the first winner of the debility lottery (and if anyone in my family is reading this let me just say, I wasn't thinking about you, I was thinking of a totally different person in the family). But it was me and I think that is why it is affecting me this way. I thought I was in the healthier half.
Now to be fair, I have been playing the cancer card pretty thick, with almost no success. It hasn't worked for a trip to Walt Disney World, money for a Paul Reed Smith, a ride to any car show, a nicer TIG welder, a new tool cabinet (I wasn't even asking for the tools, just a place to put ones I already have), a friend to name their baby "Thomasina", a trip to Cassano's, or much of anything else I have tried pity-eyes on...yet. And when I do get my wife to get me those ice cubes for my Pepsi, you can tell she threw them in the glass with extreme prejudice. And for anyone wondering, yes she does read these occasionally, and I do have to say "no one really thinks you are that mean sweetie, they know I am joking", but I'm not, she really is that mean to me.
However, there is a bit of truth to my pity eyes. I will tell you it has run through my mind at least a thousand times about all the "what ifs". All of the "what ifs" end with me having a lot more aggressive treatment or death. What if I hadn't noticed it? What if I continued to be embarrassed, ashamed, unsure, and scared to call my doctor? What if I hadn't had a great doctor that sent me immediately to a urologist? What if I had not argued with that nurse practitioner that he wasn't feeling in the right place and I walked out without seeing the urologist? What if I didn't have a such a great urologist? How far would it have spread before I couldn't ignore it anymore? I thank God that things didn't turn out like that, but you can't help but wonder about what if they did? And you wonder about the future "What ifs". And you come to the realization that you don't know what fate has planned out for you. I have spent the last two and a half weeks sitting on my couch thinking about all of the projects I wish I would have worked on in my shop on days I came home "tired", now that I am sitting home temporarily crippled and unable to do those things. Even though I know my cancer isn't going to kill me, it has sent a very big reminder that there is a finite amount of time in this life. I don't want to wait for the "good time" to take that trip. I don't want to wait to show somebody I love something. I don't want to wait to "work on that later". It's funny how my recent hours and hours in waiting rooms reminded me just how much life is wasted waiting. I'm not talking about racking up the credit cards type of stuff, I am talking about if this person were to be out of my life tomorrow, would I regret not doing this with them, or saying that to them, or even just writing that note? And there is a large amount of introspection that comes with cancer as well. You think about all the things you need to do in your life, and all the time you have spent wasted on things that didn't need done.
So, I will keep trying to dying-cancer-boy-look at least through chemo. I think after that, I can't play that card anymore. I try holding where I was sliced and diced and saying "OW, my cancer...", but so far I haven't had much success there either. I can't really grab where the cancer really was or I would look like a very bad Michael Jackson impersonator, or a 90s rapper. But you never know, maybe the pity eyes will work one of these times and I will be playing my new PRS guitar and TIG welding up a storm on my way from the car show to Disney World. If not, hopefully I can at least get a few more glasses of ice for my Pepsi from my wife...unless she reads this. But, honey, sweetheart if you are reading this, I really could use that ice. Remember it's exactly seven cubes, no more no less. Ow, my cancer.
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