Shouldering New Realities

June 3, 2021

Now that I’ve exhausted my anger– or maybe it’s exhausted me– the next question on the block is, where do the new realities fit in my life? I’ve been surprised to realize there’s more than one. The obvious one is, I am now a cancer warrior. But it’s not as simple as, pick up that new fact and toss it in my daily backpack. Because that fact comes with a multiplicity of other facts and implications, all of which have their own particular space requirements in that pack.

First, the reality of ongoing treatment. The plan, and hope, is that I will tolerate durvalumab every other week for a year, or, alternatively, for as long as possible. Realities that come with that: there are side effects that may occur, some quite serious (although rare, thank goodness). The infusions will take space on my calendar: between labs, seeing doctor, getting the infusion, at least an hour or two each time, plus a clear calendar for the day after, just in case….  Also, side effects may have an impact on physical and emotional health.

Second, the realities of lung cancer. Some people are declared free of cancer, better know as NED (No Evidence of Disease). But many people have recurrences. In the support group I have found, all but one of the members have been Stage IV patients, which speaks to the awful sneakiness of the disease, which usually shows no symptoms until the cancer has spread beyond the lungs to other parts of the body, often the brain. This is considerably different than my staging, where the cancer’s spread has stayed regional, moving from the lung only into nearby lymph nodes.

The one Stage III person in the group has been NED for 10 years. I’ll take that! But the reality is that in most patient stories I read, of people staged III and even lower, the cancer recurs, often with a new genetic mutation. Acknowledging that reality is not surrendering to it as an inevitability, but it takes space in the mental backpack, maybe more than one might expect. Because, faced with a possible recurrence, does one change one’s goals or plans? How far into the future should one look? Beats me. The advice I get is to live my life as fully and completely as possible. I’m still working out what that looks like, so my ideas are half-baked at best. I think there’s something abut joy in there, but we’ll see.

Third, the implications and numbers one and two. My plan for the immediate future, i.e., the summer and early fall, involve losing the #$%^ weight they wanted me to gain and developing cardiac and muscular fitness. Next summer, there’s an awesomely cool camping extravaganza in the works.  Beyond that, we shall see.

It’s been a fairly agonizing process to weave these realities into my perspective. Or, in line with the backpack metaphor, to prepare to carry the new weight they bring. Whenever you add weight to a backpack, you have to exchange it for something that’s already in there, because you can’t carry everything.

This is more hard stuff to figure out; it makes me sad.

Thanks for understanding if it seems like I’m hibernating. I guess I am. If I don’t reach out, feel free to reach in if you’d like. I probably won’t have a lot to say about it, but at least you’ll know what I’m doing.

Thanks for reading.