October 17: How I Reacted to My Diagnosis

On my Facebook, I opened myself up to questions for entry fodder for this month. Here's one of them.

What was it like when you first heard your Metastatic diagnosis. How did you cope? First thoughts? First days? First month? Now? -Beth

 When I first heard the words Stage IV, it wasn't entirely a surprise, but for the wrong reasons. My primary mass was 6 centimeters in size, and I thought that size was related to stage. It can relate to stage sometimes, but not always. I assumed because the mass was big, that meant it would be Stage IV. I didn't fully understand what that meant.

I thought I was still able to be cured. I thought I'd be fine, that I just had to power through harsher treatment, more chemo, more surgery than an earlier-stage patient might. You could say that I coped with denial. I wasn't dying. That couldn't be true. I would be just fine, just you wait and see.

I argued with my oncologist. I told him to mark my words, I'd be cancer-free, I was strong enough to beat this. Bless him, he didn't argue back. He knew I'd come around sooner or later, and that it wasn't the time or place to push the issue.

I walked a very fine between calm and screaming despair, like walking a tightrope. I put on the bravest front I could muster in an effort to convince myself that I would be okay. Whenever my thoughts started to run wild on me, I brought them back under control by reciting the Litany Against Fear from Frank Herbert's Dune.

"I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain."

Jen and I at the salon when we got our heads shaved together.

 I fully and wholeheartedly believed, thanks to the pinkwashing, that I just had to be strong enough, brave enough, tough enough to fight this and beat this thing, and I would be fine.

Coming to the realization that wasn't the case was harder.

I was still convinced I'd be fine a month later, but I was starting to think of it more as a simple, chronic, and wholly manageable disease I'd just be on medications for for the rest of my life. I was starting to achieve some inner zen though, around the time my hair started falling out and I went in to have my head shaved.

Coming to terms with my own mortality, I wrote about that back in the early days of this blog.

I've come to realize that this is essentially a chronic illness. There is no cure. I will have cancer for the rest of my life and while I want that rest of my life to be a long, long time, I'm aware that it might not be, despite everything I do.

That's kinda fucking terrifying to realize.

I've been adapting to this understanding in bits and pieces. I've skirted around and cast indirect glances, like watching a Medusa through the reflection of a shield, by coming up with a soundtrack for my funeral, and I've looked it straight on without really thinking about it and wrote my own obit. I had to ease into the acceptance of this possibility the way you ease into a too-cold pool, or a too-warm hot tub. Inch by cringing inch.

But like the pool or hot tub, once you're submerged, it no longer feels as bad as it did going in. Sometimes it's even a comfortable feeling.

I think the imagery of Medusa and the shield is the best way to describe what it was like for me to face my own mortality. I couldn't look it directly on, or I'd turn to stone. I had to look at an indirect reflection to be able to face it. Once I was able to face it, I slowly became accustomed to it.  As I became accustomed to it, it lost its power to turn me into stone. Now, I can look at it straight on and say "I'm terminal" without a rush of panic or stammering excuses.

I'm doing fine now, better than fine, actually. According to my oncologist, I'm doing great. I do attribute some of that to my ability to achieve that calm zen I felt during my time in chemotherapy, staying calm and chill and upbeat. Positive thinking won't cure my cancer but it did make the side effects less horrible overall.