Today I spent the morning with a good friend who is recovering from her own serious health condition. We got into a conversation about how hard it is to recover from a serious illness, not necessarily physically but mentally as well. There are so many aspects to recovery that get overlooked because caregivers are focused on, well recovery, but just physical. The medical profession seems to think if they fixed your ailment, you're done.
One thing I noticed since my cancer diagnosis, is before I found out I had cancer, I did routine checks for testicular cancer. I had a doctor in 1998 tell me it would be a good idea to check and I did the checks often, sometimes twice or more a day depending on how many other people were in the pool at the time, but every since I found the cancer, I hardly check. The ironic thing is, I have about half as much to check after the cancer, so you would think it would be easier to check now. However, I could probably count the times I have checked since then on one hand...not that hand the other one, the non-checking hand. I don't know why, but I have developed an aversion to checking myself since I had actually found something. Luckily, since I still manage to see one professional or another approximately every forty three minutes, I am getting checked enough right now by other people, so I don't need to worry about it, my family doctor, my urologist, my oncologist, my friend's overly curious dog, that TSA guy behind me in line at Arby's the other day, well at least I think it was a TSA uniform, or it could have been a bus driver's uniform, who ever it was he was very gentle and paid for my Arby-Q. I brought this issue up at my cancer support group to see if any other of the self examiners had the same mental block after diagnosis, but unfortunately the breast cancer survivors weren't there that day. There were a few prostate cancer survivors, but they didn't look flexible enough to perform self exams.
When down physically for so long, it takes a while to get back in the swing of things. The doctors pretty much force you to be a couch potato through weight restrictions and other warnings of dyer consequences if you overexert. After weeks, or even months, of continuously watching daytime TV, it's hard to get back into a routine of getting up, moving around, and even concentrating on anything that doesn't involve paternity testing, especially during Oprah's last season! And even when you do start to move about and get braver and braver, there can be certain obstacles in your daily life that look insurmountable. As part of my mowing routine, I have to dangle a push mower down a very steep embankment about five feet, pull it back up, and try to keep my toes out of the way the whole time I am struggling with it. This is something that leaves me physically drained and crippled on a good day, I will admit, I am scared to death to do it when I still haven't been released to do that sort of thing from the doctor that performed my surgery.
Then there is just the mental recovery. Believe it or not, you feel like your brain gets flabby from not being used while you were recovering. I tried to keep my brain sharp by first reading Yahoo articles on-line, then working my way up to on-line versions of magazines, then newspapers, and even tried to read a few books on-line. It was months into my recovery before I realized I had just been looking at porn the whole time, which I would stop, but I am not quite done with this article. The point being, when you brain isn't working as hard as it had in the past, it takes a while to be able to stare at a computer screen for hours on end again (especially if there is no porn on that computer screen).
One last part of mental recovery I will mention, kinda relates to one of the first things I mentioned, and that is the fear that you are not quite well yet, or that it will come back. There is a reason that until recently, oncologists would never use the word "cured" they would just say "remission". I don't know that I will ever get over the fear that the cancer isn't quite gone, or that it's hiding somewhere else, or that it's just not big enough to show up on tests yet, or that it's lying dormant, or, or, or, or....with so much of cancer being an unknown, how do we as patients feel secure in our "cured" diagnoses? And am I sure our families/caregivers/support networks have the same fears, whether they will verbalize them or not.
I guess in many ways, recovering from a serious illness is like a "recovering alcoholic". Sure, Bill W. never plans on having another drink, but he knows that threat is always lurking in the background. In much the same way, I don't ever plan on having cancer again, but I know there is a possibility, however slight, that it could be hiding somewhere. Maybe I should do some more internet "reading" and a self-exam just to make sure there's no cancer left.
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