Ten things cancer has given me

I'm starting to think (and blog) in bullet points.  Too much time in powerpoint meetings? Perhaps.
This is where my mind was during a particularly dull one today....

Thank you, cancer experience.  You have brought me:

1) A quicker recognition of simply beautiful things. You can't appreciate spring flowers when you don't feel well or when you are consumed with staying alive. I see them now. I see them immediately and gaze a little longer than I used to.

2) An appreciation for good health.  A return to health makes you appreciate more what you had, then lost--the ability to get through a day without thinking about how crappy you feel or look. I only hope I don't go back to taking it for granted.

3) Empathy for those who have had a much tougher journey than I have.  I want to help those just entering the cancer chaos, but I don't know how to reach them; how to connect or what to say or do. I want to tell them that they will make it through to the other side and that in the year to come they'll be creating their own list, if only in their head.

4) The freedom to not stress about keeping up with friends and family.  Those that truly care are always there...regardless of whether you've talked to them or sent them a text or an email in the last six months. Some of the strongest human connections I have are rekindled fairly infrequently.

5) The opportunity to see how the friends and family referenced above reacted. Still trying not to be bitter in some regards; I'm sure some had good reasons for indifference or avoidance. I hope I can be better than that. It's kind of like going to your own funeral; you get to see who "shows up" for you.

6)  A personal growth experience that I would have missed had I not been diagnosed and gone through the ups and downs (okay mostly downs) of treatment and recovery from treatment.  Some people actually pay life coaches for this kind of stuff .

7) A glimpse into a world of internet connections that I never knew existed. I've "met" women on line who have wonderful stories to tell; women who are marvelously talented writers and are actively sharing their intensely personal tales of cancer diagnosis, treatment, and life.  Yes, life goes on amid it all and it's fascinating to see the sunshine of shifting perspective among survivors and the remarkable optimism of those still struggling to beat it.

8) The ability to put my feet up after a long, tense day and not feel guilty about it.  OK, admittedly still working on this one but I'm clearly not as type A as I used to be....

9) An increased ability to speak professionally.  I have less fear about making my points known; I'm less intimidated by being surrounded by intelligent men. On second thought, this may have more to do with age or hormones (or lack thereof) than cancer. 

10) Menopause. Speaking of hormones...cancer has brought me roughly and abruptly into the "change of life".  Several years sooner than I would have gotten here without the aid of radiation, but what the hey.  I can say I got it over with; one less thing on the great 'to do' list of life.

Hope Springs Eternal

Thankful today for the beauty of spring. Hoping everyone has beautiful flowers out their windows and in their souls.

HRT

Have I mentioned that I love my estrogen replacement patch?  I waited for over a year to take the plunge, but am so thankful now that I did.  Who would have thought that actually being able to sleep all night would have such a positive impact on one's outlook on life :) 

Grateful for having made it to this place.  Thank you Lord and thank you....whoever invented estrogen replacement!

The proverbial other shoe

Do you ever get over the feeling that the other shoe is about to fall?  I'm guessing this is a fairly common phenomenon among cancer survivors....the thought that every weird thing that goes on with your body is a sign that the cancer is back, or has moved, or is encroaching into some new tissue, some new organ.

Wonder if my insurance company would care if I had a PET scan every week.  Ha.

To hormone or not to hormone?

That is the question.  I have been resisting any kind of hormone replacement therapy. Doctors are reluctant to recommend one route or another. Tales of the increased risk of breast cancer abound. I've had that scare in (what seems long enough ago to be) a previous life. Multiple lumpectomies and finally, a diagnosis of grandulamatous lobular mastitis. Not at all fun at the time, but after this most recent adventure, a walk in the park. But I digress.
After almost exactly a year of dealing with the motherlode of hot flashes, I've thrown in the towel (no pun intended) and jumped on the estrogen replacement bus.
What pushed me over the edge was snapping....literally, a couple of different times, and at work no less. So I decided that since I really like my job (and having the ability to pay my mortgage) I needed to do something to address the irritability and the sense of overwhelming frustration.  I could have found a shrink, or tried anti depressants (actually recommended by a doc along the way) but am fundamentally opposed to both.  Instead I opted for estrogen.  What a concept.  Turns out the body wants and needs it, even after the ability to produce it is stripped away without consult.
I'm only 4 weeks in, but can tell the difference already.  I sleep better, have more energy, and have a somewhat diminished desire to rip the head off of overbearing and/or incompetent people I work with.  Life is good.

Things I know now that I wish I'd known then

• Get PAP smears every year.  Do it regardless of how much you hate it, how busy you are, how unimportant it becomes or how unnecessary it seems. Do it even if you've had a hysterectomy. IMHO, the new recommendation to only have one every three years is fueled by the health insurance companies, and they may not have your best interest in mind (gasp). 
• Find out from whatever doc does your PAP smears if you have HPV.  Not sure if I did, but if it was present it would have been nice to know.
• Your health is sacred. If you still have it, appreciate it. 
• Menopause sucks. Early menopause sucks more.  Radiation induced menopause sucks most.
• If only I had known what was in store for me, I would have eaten better, walked more, maybe even worked out occasionally.  Shame on me for not doing more menopause related research until I was living it (they did warn me), and shame on my myriad of doctors for not having time to deal with it.
• Depression and irritability are some of the most common side effects of menopause, but hot flashes get all the press.
• Your health is sacred. If you still have it, appreciate it. Did I say that already?

Sharing your diagnosis....to tell, or not to tell

Having a cancer diagnosis, particularly a vaginal cancer diagnosis, brings with it the awkward position of either having to tell people what's going on or trying to keep it to yourself.  In my case, I wasn't inclined to broadcast to friends and family that I had cancer of the vag....so I told only those I had to.  Like my bosses, and my direct reports--both of whom would obviously notice the sudden departures from work for treatments.  The curse of being a workaholic is that everyone comes to expect that you're always at work, so when you're not, it's somewhat conspicuous.  So in total, probably about 5 or 6 people at work knew I had cancer.  I gotta say I think it would have been easier if it had been breast cancer, or lymphoma, even bladder or colon cancer.  Anything but telling your co-workers (all men) that you have vaginal cancer.  Sharing that information was to me a curse worse than death.  So I snuck out when I could, never called in sick, and in general felt like crap and looked like shit for about 8 weeks. Some people asked what was going on; I dodged the questions and said something vague.
I should clarify--even those at work I had to tell--I never specified WHAT kind of cancer it was.  Just that it was a tumor that they could not operate on due to the proximity to the bladder. Which was true actually.  The V word would have made for a much more uncomfortable conversation -- for them and me.
Of course my husband and daughter knew...they live here.  That said, we didn't really talk about it much.  My teenager went from certainty that I was going to die to barely remembering when my chemo days were.

I told my sister, because she's had close and personal experience dealing with cancer and cancer treatments before.  And because I trusted her and valued her opinion.  She in turn told my other siblings, nieces and nephews. 
I was kind of pissed at first (and still am occasionally) but I realize that life is too short to worry about any self-imposed embarassment sharing this information brought with it.

My sister-in-law knew because she was here when my OB-GYN first called with the news about 9:30 one night...instant clue that something's up. She ended up telling my step daughter many months later, who was hurt and offended that neither me or her dad had told her while I was going through it.

I never did tell my parents, even though others thought that not telling them was horrible of me. I just said...you don't know my mother.

I've always been a pretty private person (insert some psycho babble about a dysfunctional upbringing here) not one of those 'let's get everything out in the open and talk about it to everyone who strolls by' types.

I'm only sharing these examples and covering this topic in a post because I'm all about trying to help someone else who may be trying to figure out how to maneuver through this.  So my sagely advice on this topic:  tell everyone that means something to you.  Even if it's embarassing, and even if you're fairly confident that you'll be fine in the end. If you don't, you'll wish you had, and at some point it becomes just too late to share because then they'll be hurt that you didn't tell them earlier. 

I think perhaps the best approach would have been to just put it out there, ask for no pity, and move on.