Catching Rays of Light from the End of the Tunnel

This past September was my seventh anniversary of being diagnosed with cancer. I wrote a blog about it. It was the last one I wrote. I’ve spent the last week going through the medical motions of getting a new PCP, an Oncologist, and trying and maintain my health.

I have been told the chances of having any cancer is pretty slight, but because of the specific kind I have, there is still a reason for concern, so scan my body I must. I will go through the giant ring with the weird iodine flushing through my body so that the doctors can look inside of me. 

Then there is my plea to find out if the fatigue, ongoing pain, and joint issues are a symptom of my imagination, a curse left by my chemo days, some fucked up new disease that I will have to contend with, or am I just a 45 year old long in the tooth and jealous of my more youthful days? 

I will tell you the truth, and this is not for sympathy or that I have it wrong, but I am tired of being tired and in pain. If I move around too much, I am in pain. If I sit around too much, I’m in pain. If I lie down for too long, I’m in pain. I dream of being in pain.

It isn’t a high painful number. It is constant twos and threes with spikes into a six and seven once in a while. Some days I don’t notice it, but it is there as a slight rumble in the back of my eyes reminding me that I don’t feel good, and the minute I’m not distracted, I will feel it. Other days it is all I feel. 

I know it’ll be hard to diagnose me. I’ve seen House MD. This is what will happen: The team of doctors will have my pathology report upon a glass screen where one can see the happening of a busy hospital in the background. A doctor will suggest a disease, maybe one that some regular people have heard of, but the primary doctor will yell and try to hit the doctor with his cane and yell about the one symptom that doesn’t fit the criteria of the suggested diagnosis. After further grumbling, the sexual tension between two doctors, and the suffering of a lonely drug-addled doctor wishing for more Percocet that he can chew without too much disgust, a diagnosis is issued, and our hero, me, gets rushed to the hospital for treatment. The treatment doesn’t work; in fact, it makes me worse. I die and am gallantly saved by one of the love-sick doctors while the target of their affection looks on with pride and lust. A second diagnosis is claimed, and I am sent to another room to get my surgery. The primary doctor and a doctor, who is strangely calm and rational, reason with the primary doctor on why he needs to go to a treatment center to get off the pills. The primary doctor has a tantrum, but right before he can storm off, I go into convulsions, and foam comes pouring out of my mouth while doctors and nurses rush around yelling and sticking tubes into me. After I am stabilized, the doctors retreat to the office to try and figure it out. The two love birds have an intense conversation about one of their childhood trauma, and their voice gets throaty as their lips get closer and closer together until it looks like they will kiss. Still, the addicted primary doctor interrupts and forces the almost love birds to join the rest of the team to discuss my ailment. It finally dawns on the woman doctor that has to keep proving herself worthy of being there that I had once been to Africa and that there is this bug that can lie dormant inside of a human body forever. Still, it can be awoken by specific cancer chemo treatments and that this bug has been the issue all along. The doctors rush to my side and find implanted in a small hole in my back that I had thought a cyst was this African bug, and the minute the lady doctor removes it from my back, I am fine. The lad doctor gets thirty seconds of praise and respect, the lovers decide to talk outside of work, and the primary doctor apologizes to the calm doctor, and he hands him the last of his Percocet…

…or I will have to do some tests; I’ve already made one of two blood work appointments and then find that nothing has been found and that my fatigue, my aches, my swollen joints are just a side effect of intensive treatment of cancer. 

I have spent an enormous part of my recovery from cancer wondering if I see the light at the end of the tunnel. Then I hear it may be another train, or maybe a guy with a flashlight, or perhaps I stared at a bright light too long, and there is that spot stuck in my vision. 

I think it seems so intense this time is I’m across the country where I just don’t know anything. I have a wonderfully supportive wife and a pretty good dog. When I look out my window and see the trees and hear the birds, it looks and sounds alien. 

My job is alien, and its newness, the learning aspect of it, exhausts me. Talking to strangers about health insurance all day is exhausting. Talking to strangers all day about health insurance and navigating my health issues is beyond exhaustion. Because it is what I do primarily with my day, I dream of my job. I see the reports I have to fill out. I double guess decisions I have made, and sometimes it wakes me up. 

I am so tired that I can’t write, draw, or enjoy TV. I complained to my wife that I am tired of being involved with these shows for several seasons. I get sick of the overarching plot points that glue the episodes together. I don’t care anymore if Otis and Maude are ever going to get together. I don’t care if Elizabeth ever finds out who Red Reddington is. I don’t care; there are no more final frontiers. Or if the Face of Boe ever witnesses the end of time. 

I have this unfinished tarot deck and book sitting there. All I have to do is do it. Finish it. The idea of picking up a pencil or pen is overwhelming at best. My breathing speeds up, and then I end up watching TV anyway full of shame.

My Oncologist reminds me of Mandy Patinkin. Calming. There is a wisdom that comes from him, and he put me at ease that my fears are genuine and we, the healthcare team, are going to figure it out. I hope he’s right.