The Reality of Living With Cancer Starts Settling In

Eight Long Months of Treatments

Since my breast cancer diagnosis in early March of this year, these past eight months have at times felt like a woman’s worst nightmare coming true. At other times, I felt like I was in denial: “How could I get breast cancer? I don’t have any of the predisposing factors. I feel fine and am not overweight. I never smoked, exercised regularly, and had no prior health problems.”

Yet, it is true. With all I have been through, there is no denying that this cancer diagnosis is real. It has been a long and frightful time in my life.

Once you have a cancer diagnosis, there is a whirlwind of medical appointments you attend with an array of medical caregivers from various disciplines. The appointments can keep you quite busy and preoccupied during the treatment period. Coupled with resting, recuperating, and managing fatigue, one’s thoughts can be pushed aside for extended periods of time. You do what you need to do to get through each day.

Upon the conclusion of chemotherapy, I now have some time to think about my new life in living with a cancer diagnosis. Getting through my last chemo treatment, and owning up to the fact that I now live with a cancer history has been difficult to accept. This reality of cancer, this certainty of cancer, hit with force on Tuesday night.

I was nearing the end of the run of “crappy days,” when chemo makes you feel dreadfully awful for several days after the infusion. It was not a good day. I could feel my Taxotere and chemo fatigue headache making me fade around 9:00 p.m., and decided that the best therapy was to go to bed and get some sleep.

As I lay in bed, I recounted everything I have been through in the last few months. Suddenly—like a gale force wind, a wave of soul wrenching sobs arose from the core of my being.

It seemed that my body had made a pact with me. It had carried me through all of the treatments and complications thus far, but it did not express the sorrow that was stored inside it over the last few months. It seemed that my body waited for the completion of the last chemo treatment, and gave itself the permission it needed to the express emotions it had suppressed for so long.

I believe that our bodies are very wise, far wiser than we give them credit for. They have an innate sense of how to protect us, and when they must do so. They know when to hold back emotions, and when it is timely to release them.

I get through life by “compartmentalizing” details and projects, handling them one at a time. My body appreciates this approach and handles it well. With growing wisdom, I have learned to only focus on the immediate task at hand, otherwise it is too overwhelming. This is how I got through my mastectomy and its complications, and how I got through my 6 chemo treatments and their complications. It will be how I will get through my radiation—one appointment at a time.

Intuitively, I feel that Tuesday evening’s meltdown was my body’s way of releasing and healing itself. The experience sent me a big signal that I had been ignoring--that it was OK to cry about having cancer, and it was OK to grieve for what I am going through. My body was doing what it needed to do to be well emotionally. My emotions had called their “timeout”, after patiently waiting on the sidelines of treatment all of these months.


The Severity of Chemo Infections

Tuesday was a big “reality check” day for me. The experience of having survived four chemo infections with fever since the end of September, and knowing how deadly dangerous these can be had settled in. I am extremely fortunate that each infection did not evolve into a more serious condition.

My sister Jen holds a Bachelor of Nursing degree. She has been not only a loving sister, but also a medical gift to me in this cancer journey.

A few weeks ago, while “watching” me during one of my chemo fever moments, she explained the gravity of being immune compromised as a cancer patient in regard to infections and fevers.

The biggest concern with people receiving chemotherapy is that they are at risk of developing a life-threatening infection called sepsis, which can evolve very rapidly in immune compromised patients. Sepsis is a severe bodily infection that travels via the blood stream, and eventually can become fatal if not treated quickly with broad-spectrum antibiotics.

My sister has seen the symptoms of sepsis in patients she has nursed, and is able to recognize when they are potentially emerging. Her goal of watching over me during one of the early fever and infection incidents was to detect potential sepsis symptoms, and to coach me on appropriate treatment to be taken if I landed at an emergency ward.

If a patient is being treated with chemotherapy or radiation, they need to be especially vigilant regarding possible sepsis symptoms. If they are developing sepsis, they will often have a fever (applied to me). They may also have chills (check this off for me), and severe shaking (check this off for me in one incident), and may develop pain in their joints (check this off for me).

The most common causes of sepsis are bacteria (I had this as a source in one case of infection and fever); viruses (I had this in another case of infection and fever); and fungi (I had this with Thrush infections). Infections in organs, including kidneys [urinary tract infections--I had this with one infection]; and skin [cellulitis--I had this post mastectomy] can also lead to sepsis.

Infections, fevers, and sepsis are seriously scary stuff to a chemo patient.

On Tuesday night, I realized how close I could have come to dying during two of my recent emergency visits with chemo infections and fever. This realization formed the gale force winds that unraveled my emotions. The tears of relief were released knowing that I have survived some very serious situations during my course of cancer treatment.

The Enormity of it All

The enormity of what I have been through is not something I had reflected on until this week. I have been told it has been a lot; an “unusual number of complications” decried my chemo nurses and social worker. Their collective experiences indicated that they have not seen any chemo patients with as many problems as I have had going through treatment. Perhaps it is so.

There was the mastectomy, and its related cellulitis complication. There was day surgery to insert a chemo port, which caused a blood clot and required me to go on daily injections of blood thinner. There have been low blood counts since July, and the requirement to go on blood boosters after each chemo treatment. There have been six chemotherapy infusions.

There have been Thrush infections, and four episodes of chemo infections with fever. My chemo port worked sporadically. It stopped working after my fifth infusion, resulting in using my arm for blood tests and the final infusion. Then there have been the anxious experiences of waiting for hours, several times, in the chaotic world of after hour’s medical care in emergency wards.

As I look back on making it through all of this, I now can accept that I am a gritty gal. I know that I can get through the difficult times in this cancer battle. It has never been easy, and will never be easy. I prefer to call these tough moments “character building” experiences. This character is now comfortable in officially calling herself a “Cancer Fighter.”

Daily, I think about how truly lucky I am to be alive despite all of the treatment side complications I have had. Somewhere, Angels and a Higher Power were working overtime to watch over me.

It is my hope that radiation will be easier and complication free. I am cautiously optimistic that this will be so, but will not be at ease until the treatments are done because of my complications history. I am also aware that I need to still be careful while in radiation treatment, as I will remain immune compromised.

In a few weeks, most of my cancer treatment will be behind me. I look forward to the day when I can be referred to as a Cancer Survivor. I continue to fight to get well with Strength, Courage, and Determination.