Thursday, May 14, 2015

Post-Cancer Life

It's been a while since I posted anything about cancer. That's a good thing. I guess I am finally fully recovered. Now that I am working on 4 years cancer free, I can honestly say that I have accepted my post cancer body and all that goes along with it. I have made peace with my mind's irrational fears of recurrence. I have come to grips with things that will never be what they were before cancer. I have accepted and become somewhat comfortable with my new, post-cancer, "normal".
 
But it wasn't always this way.
 
Looking back on it, I realize more than ever that the first 2 years post cancer were really, really difficult. Until now, I thought that I was just a bit crazy during that time. I didn't reach out to other cancer survivors to see if what I was experiencing was normal. I wish I had looked for help and advice to help me deal with it all back then. But I didn't. Recently, a friend reached out to me because she is struggling with her post cancer reality and I realize now that maybe I wasn't crazy after all. Maybe the things I experienced are just part of recovery.

That being said, here are some things that they don't tell you about surviving cancer.
 
  • Being a cancer survivor isn't the same as never having had cancer. I know that sounds silly, but it needs to be said. There is no "getting BACK to 'normal'" because "normal" is different post-cancer. For me, physically, I wanted my pre-cancer voice, my pre-cancer neck and throat. Emotionally, I wanted...gosh, I don't even know how to put this into words...I wanted my pre cancer life; I wanted to not freak out if my neck had a weird lump in it, if my voice acted funny, if I had a headache or if I had a nagging cough. I didn't want a migraine to warrant an MRI and CT to rule out a brain tumor. I didn't want to have chest x-rays every so many months to make sure that the cancer wasn't in my lungs. I didn't want my neck to be stiff and achy. I didn't want my voice to be hoarse.


  • Fear is real, constant, and overwhelming. The biggest fears I had were of the treatments not killing all the cancer and of recurrence and metastasis. I imagine that these are not unique to me and that others may have more fears depending on their emotional state and their type of cancer. It really didn't have anything to do with whether or not I trusted God to take care of me. It wasn't an issue of faith. I knew God has everything under control, I just didn't (don't) want to go through all that again. It didn't matter that my fears were irrational. Even when I knew that I was being irrational, I could not just dismiss the fears. They had to be dealt with. Thankfully, Doc understood and prescribed meds to help me cope until my brain could recover. Another thing that I learned at this point in my journey is that the emotional, physical, and spiritual support so readily available to the cancer patient is not available to the cancer survivor.


  • Well meaning people unknowingly heap on guilt and add to anxiety. For me, the worst thing I could hear was, "Well, at least you don't have cancer." Even now, I feel like this is dismissive of what I was experiencing at the time. Just because I no longer have cancer does not mean that I am not struggling. This little phrase hit my heart with "You should be more thankful. You are ungrateful for God's healing," which is so untrue. I was and am thankful to be healed, but healed is not the same as having never had cancer. Even today, I feel like this phrase and others similar to it were a dismissal of what I was going through at the time.  I felt like, since I didn't have cancer anymore, I "should" not need support and that made me feel ...well...bad...because I DID need support. To almost every person who has not walked this road themselves, the battle ends when cancer treatments ends. They do not realize the need for emotional support, encouragement, and understanding post cancer.
 
I spent 2-3 years suffering and miserable because I wanted things to go back to the way they were before I had cancer, and so did the people around me. I had to accept that "healed" is not "good as new". "Healed" is simply "healed". Cancer and cancer treatment leave physical scars you can see, and physical damage you can feel. They also leave emotional scars and damage. Post-cancer me is very different from pre-cancer me. That's just the way it is. NOW, I realize that accepting my post cancer voice, my post cancer neck and throat, and my post cancer life with all the scars, aches, pains, and fears was the turning point in getting "back to normal". I had to accept that my new "normal" is quite different from the old normal... and that's okay. After time passed, I was able to get off the anti-anxiety meds and was able to deal with all the fears and what not pretty well, but it took a few years to get to that place.
 
I've realized over time that post-cancer life is not so different from post-divorce life, maybe even post-military deployment life. Just because I don't have cancer now does not mean that I am the same as I was before I had cancer. Similarly, my friend who is divorced is not the same woman she was before she married, even though, technically, she is single again. I have heard it said that those who fight for our country bring the war back with them. In all these cases, though each is very different, the thing we want most is the one thing we cannot have...for things to go back to the way they were before.
 
As I've said many times about traumatic events, it is bad enough that it happened; it is a complete tragedy to let Satan use it to keep you in bondage.  I believe that this is one way that Satan keeps us in bondage after a traumatic event. He creates in our heart a longing for the one thing we cannot have...the life we had before the trauma. In longing for what we had (and cannot have again), we miss out on what we have.
 
I wish I'd understood this 3 years ago....
 

Monday, May 11, 2015

In The Battle



I'm feeling very "blah". Its really a bit worse than "blah". I feel like I have a weight on my chest...like the weight of the world. I feel like I am on the verge of a panic attack. Like I have everything very carefully balanced and the slightest bump will send my entire world crumbling all around me. I just want to go to sleep so that I don't have to think about anything. To make matters worse, it upsets me that I feel this way because I SHOULDN'T feel this way. I know better. I'm the preacher's wife, for goodness sake.  I should be thankful and grateful and happy and joyful. I have so many things to be thankful for and I feel...."wrong" for not being over the top bubbly and happy and all "God Loves you and so do I".  But the fact of the matter is, I don't feel that way, not today at least. Now that I think about it, I am "yeah whatever" fairly  often. Not quite as often as I am "God loves you and so do I!", but more often than I think I should be. And then I'm thinking...ya know what? I don't really even like myself. I am a jumbled up muddled up mess most of the time. How in the world can I write anything of value when I am so very... not together? It always comes back to writing with me. I can do laundry and cook supper and read with my kids whether I love myself or not. I have tremendous insecurities about my parenting and wife-ing abilities,  but I can go through the motions even when I feel like I am falling apart. I can't go through the motions when I write. Writing is my mirror. My words reflect my heart back to me and sometimes I don't like what I see. So,  I struggle every day to see what God sees in me and can't for the life of me understand why He keeps me here. So I am sitting here and I am thinking... and I'm depressed. 
 
And then I get the following email....
 
Just wanted to drop you an email to tell you THANK YOU.
I have been reading your blogs (as you know) and studying as I go.
Your thoughts are so encouraging to know others feel and wonder the same as me….but you have such a great ability to write them, and plant them on “paper”.
Thank you again for being you. For being my distant friend that I have no hold backs of saying how I feel, and being the Christian and encouragement you are!
 

To be quite honest, I don't know what to do with that because the FIRST thing that hits my heart is overwhelming gratitude for  this distant friend who listens to my rambling and doesn't judge me harshly...and cares enough to send me an email to encourage my heart. Then I am immediately overwhelmed that God would prompt her heart to encourage mine, because I know it has to be at His urging because He is the only one who truly understands how I struggle. And I am encouraged. Maybe God can use me. With all my self-doubt and insecurities...maybe He can actually use me. And maybe it's better that way because by allowing all of this I remember that I need Him, that my strength comes from Him and that, whatever I write, comes from Him and is for His glory and not mine.  

 And all of a sudden I feel...almost bold... maybe even  courageous...and I believe that I am exactly where I am supposed to be, here on my little blog in all of my brokenness, writing about the Lover of my soul.

 I'm reminded that years ago God prompted me to share about the battle we fight against Satan and his minions. We don't choose our battles with Satan. He gets me where he can, and all too often he uses my insecurity and self-doubt against me. Today, that is the battle I am fighting. Perhaps I am not alone in this.

Through all of this, I am reminded that my God is big... no, huge... and He can do immeasurably great things through ordinary people. He did it all through Scripture and I wonder, did the folks in the Bible feel insignificant and wonder if what they did mattered? I believe that we really won't know how we impacted the world we live in until we get to Heaven. Until then, I will serve Him in whatever place and capacity He puts me, so that when my time is done, I can rush into the arms of  One who knows me best and hear Him say the words my heart so desperately longs to hear, "Well done".