Tag: Normal

Finally Normal: My Six-Year Oncological Visit

I hit another cancer journey milestone this past week: my six-year oncology appointment.

Like my last few appointments, this one felt commonplace and unintimidating…and if the nurse had let me sit down for a couple of minutes after coming into the exam room, my blood pressure would have been lower. As it was, the reading was not that far from normal.

For the first time since cancer, my bloodwork is all normal!!!

One other thing that was strikingly normal: for the first time in six years, since all the cancer madness began, all my bloodwork, both Complete Blood Count (CBC) and Comprehensive Metabolic Profile (CMP), was completely normal. Nothing that would suggest a year’s worth of cancer treatment in the past.

This is so curious because for years, nothing felt normal.

Now everything is.

Ironically, it was my oncologist who was experiencing illness and I had to switch my appointment time so that he could get to his doctor.

I was hit by the realization that everything that had felt out-of-control and hopeless six years ago no longer existed. I was the one who had kept the idea of cancer alive in myself. I still defined myself as a cancer survivor because perhaps I needed some way to justify what I considered to be my shortcomings, as in, “I used to be able to do this, but…”.

This was a battle I fought in but only memories remain. In the present moment, there’s only silence.

Returning to the cancer center for this appointment felt like I was visiting a battlefield from a war that I had fought long ago. The echoes of battle cries…just the wind. The clashing weapons and falling bodies…not there anymore. This may sound like such an overly theatrical description, but that’s exactly what it seemed like.

This doesn’t mean that I’ve got the rest of my life figured out. There are still so many unknowns, including an increased chance of cancer recurrence — and I still need to schedule this year’s mammogram, something else that slipped my mind as I was basking in the idea of being “normal”.

But that tortured soul who, on top of all the other stressful things going on in her life, was hit with a cancer diagnosis…she doesn’t exist anymore. If I’m so unfortunate as to have the cancer come back, she won’t be experiencing the aftermath.

I will. And I feel like I’m so much better equipped to handle all that uncertainty than she ever was.

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I still call myself a cancer survivor. But it’s only one of a long list of “skills” that I have on my resume.

Is It Metastasis or Menopause?

Ever get the funny feeling that something’s wrong?

Like things are a bit “off” but you can’t be sure? I’ve been dealing with that ever since I got off letrozole, an endocrine therapy for breast cancer with a reputation for being difficult to take.

As of this posting, I’ve been off letrozole for 117 days exactly–yes, I’m counting. I’m still shaking off side effects like stupid-crazy joint stiffness, but at least I can tell things have improved.

That’s not what I’m talking about here.

I’ve taken a few rides in the MRI tube already. Not in any hurry to repeat that.

Right now I’m having some “really intense” memory and focus issues. I’ve put “really intense” in quotes, because I talk in superlatives so that my concerns are taken seriously. It’s a bad habit, especially when speaking to an oncologist, because it’s a sure way to end up in an MRI tube. Again.

In the past, my oncologist suggested that my memory problems might have been related to anxiety and not the medications I was on. That’s quite possible, although it’s hard to tease apart “anxiety” and “med side effects”. I mean, simply being told you have cancer causes an immediate spike of the Stress-O-Meter. For someone as anxiety-prone as me, it’s like I’m constantly red-lining.

Now I’m off the endocrine therapy and my memory and distractibility seem to have gotten even worse. What I had before wasn’t like THIS.

It’s kind of like saying, “This hurts. I think I’m being hit on the head with a hammer.” But then you actually get hit by a hammer, and think, “WHOA, now THIS is being hit on the head with a hammer!”

If thoughts are beads on a string, my beads are dropping off at a constant rate, leaving me wondering what I was about to do three seconds ago. And getting distracted by shiny objects. Couple that with having to learn a complex new financial system for work (grrrrr, Larry Ellison), not having helpful documentation to do so and having to go through that while being mainly confined to my bedroom for over a year…yeah, it’s a mess.

I am not being rational and I know it. But I’m still on high alert and dialing my fears down is going to take time.

Because my breast cancer was HER2+–which has been associated with metastases to the brain–my anxious little self immediately thinks, “Wait, maybe this is cancer’s spread stealing my thoughts???” I think that I will forever be jumping to that as the first possibility.

That’s not completely unreasonable, either. According to “Medical News Today”, memory problems are listed as one of the symptoms of brain metastases, along with headaches, stroke, seizures, confusion, dizziness…okay not really experiencing any of those.

And the Mayo Clinic metastasis website asks: what are the most likely causes of my symptoms? So, I admit, a brain tumor probably isn’t, given all the other more likely possibilities: menopause, work stress, loneliness, lack of purpose…and *cough* listening to Twitch video streams while I’m trying to focus.

So really, these memory issues could be a completely normal effect of menopause, but in the cancer context the possibilities are frightening. It takes a lot of perspective to be able to look at what’s going on and realize that it’s not aberrant or dangerous. I feel like an idiot for jumping to the worst conclusions, but here I am…

It’s a survivor thing.