Anxiety: A Resolution

So. I haven't been on here for a month. That was not by design. Here's the thing: I've reduced myself into the shadows. Over the course of the last month, now that I stop to think about it, I've stopped posting on social media, stopped writing, stopped driving unless absolutely necessary, stopped buying groceries, stopped going outside (again, unless necessary), stopped writing - my blogs, my fiction, my daily journals, stopped going to yoga. Stopped walking to the coffeeshop.  Haven't even texted much. I don't even sit at my desk anymore, or read about world affairs. And this week? Ugh. This week, I didn't get out of bed until my mom came over and bought me lunch on Tuesday. And on Monday, I flat out refused to walk to get lunch with my husband. I went to bed last night at 7pm.  Why?

It's a good question. The answer is fear and anxiety. Cancer is scary and anxiety inducing, right? Right. But I've suffered from anxiety issues almost my entire life. Of course, they didn't suggest to kids in the early 80s that they might have anxiety disorders, but I gave myself an ulcer by the middle of high school. In college, it wasn't so bad. In my 20s, it returned and blossomed into panic attacks, where the floor and the horizon and the walls would just suddenly jolt out of position, and I'd be left sort of lurching, grabbing onto the furniture, heart beating wildly, throat constricted, the pulse pounding in my ears.  Horrifying. Terrible. Yoga helped me so much, and so did eating well. So did finding a truly fantastic life partner. And let's not forget Effexor, that lovely chemical handmaiden. But the anxiety remained. I leaned against the chalkboard in my classrooms, feigning nonchalance while the room swayed, or I sat down in the middle of the room, unable to stand. Behind the panic attacks? Parenthood. Career considerations. Relationships of all types. And then cancer came.

Honestly, in some ways, cancer calmed me down a little bit for a while. I mean, I'd never worried about getting colon cancer at 38! (Why would I worry about that?) When a cancer diagnosis arrives, your entire life immediately snaps into crystallized focus, and all sorts of things and people and positions you thought you cared about immediately fall away. It's that feeling you get after a huge rainstorm, when you go outside and see all the destruction and your heart drops to your knees - but you also smell something amazing and real, and the sunset is more beautiful than it's ever been before. At least, that's how it was for me. Anxiety was one of those things that I cast aside. I didn't have the mental or emotional space to accommodate it.

Flash forward four and a half years, and anxiety has waxed and waned - and waxed again. It's a parrot surgically implanted on my proverbial shoulder, nipping at my ear, clucking and cawing loudly enough that I can't hear anything else, and I can't walk away, of course, because, you know, it's my fucking parrot.  I have plenty to be anxious about, too. The immunotherapy trial failed after five months; my existing tumors grew. That was August. This means I didn't have any chemo for eight months, because I had to be chemo free to be eligible for the trial. As soon as I realized that, I became really scared. That's a long time to have no chemo, and we know that the cancer is growing besides. So I wasn't terribly enthusiastic about the new chemo I started. It's a drug that is pretty new to the market and only has clinical data for its efficacy as a third or fourth line chemotherapy, so the data doesn't look great. But I started taking it anyway...and then I had bloodwork a few weeks ago and my CEA...had doubled. In a month. (My CEA number makes me absolutely crazy. I hate it so much and panic about it so often that we usually don't even take it unless I am getting scanned, because I get scanned as frequently as is allowed anyway.)  Did I panic? Yeah, a little. I didn't want to keep taking a drug that didn't seem to be working. My NP was resolute that "this is what" my doctor wanted. So then I had to remind them that what I want matters at least as much as what the doctor wants!  I wanted a CT and MRI right away, but it was too early to get another one. So we decided to go ahead and do the second cycle of chemo but also to move my scans up from the first week of November to, well, now. I have scans tonight and results tomorrow. In the meantime, my husband looked at my CEA history and pointed out that the only other time when it has doubled was when I started chemo way back when - and it was a sign that the cancer cells were dying, because CEA doesn't differentiate between living cancer cells and dead ones (or at least, that's my understanding). This has given me something to at least hang onto as I've been swimming around in a sea of dread the last few weeks.

And now, the waiting ends tomorrow (well, this round of waiting). Will it be good news or bad news? I don't know. I am expecting bad news but hoping for good news, honestly. But after talking to my therapist today and getting out of the house because I had no choice and watching an inspiring video that my cousin's wife, a fellow stage IV CRC patient (talk about an awful coincidence!), posted online today, I've decided that it doesn't matter. I mean, of course it matters. If I get bad news, the outlook grows a bit murkier and the decisions more difficult (although I am buoyed by the fact that I've only ever stopped chemo regimens due to toxicity, not failure, so I can return to those options), and I can either decide to celebrate every day that still beckons to me - or I can give up a bit, and die as little, and begin the long slide down the slippery slope to resignation. If it's good news, I can either rejoice in that, renew my existing determination, and relax and enjoy the holiday season - or I can start worrying about the next set of scans. And is that any way to live? No. 

 I've been here on this good earth 4 1/2 years longer than cancer expected me to be (so, you know, fuck you, cancer). I've prided myself on living a life in which I have cancer but it's not the only thing in my life, and in doing things I want despite my health problems. But in the last month or two, I've started to close up shop mentally. I just wanted everything out. Which is the stupidest choice I've made in a long time.  I've just been so tired. So completely weary. I know this isn't what you want to hear. I know that it's not chill to spill all of my sad thoughts and tired thoughts and desolate thoughts. It's one of the reasons I haven't written, along with the paralyzing fear that admitting things make them possible or true. But I need to write. I need to keep engaging. And really, people need to know that cancer isn't just about the disease. It's not just about the physical symptoms or the chemo or surgeries or side effects. It attacks you mentally and emotionally and spiritually, day after day and month after month and year after year.  It makes you question and despair and dissolve. It's tough stuff. I've been in the trenches:

• 141,350,400 seconds
• 2,355,840 minutes
• 39,264 hours
• 1636 days
• 233+ weeks 

That's a long time. At the same time, I realize so intimately that MY 1636 days have been full of beauty, and love, and life, and miracles - they've been an honor and a privilege. They're days so many others haven't had at all. 

So, yeah. Cancer is tough. I'm tougher, of course! I have many more days ahead of beauty and complaints, I know.  But I let cancer get the upper hand these last weeks - I see that now. I need to "live every day of my life." I'm sorry I haven't been doing so well in that department lately. I really am. I'll do better. But even if I don't, I'll keep writing. Because without my words, I'm so lost. I'm so much more broken. Writing - to myself, to my loved ones, to the internet, to the unspeakable void - it's all I really have to prove I'm here and still exist. It's my ultimate weapon.

"Do not worry. You have written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know." - e. hemingway