The End

This is my 300th post. I have written in this blog for the past three years, and now it is time for me to move on. Thank you to everyone who has read and especially to everyone who has commented. I hope you’ve enjoyed, and I hope that it’s given you something to think about. I know it’s done so for me. Thank you and good bye.

Things We Lose, The Wonderful

Not everything we lose is bad. Such a significant change like cancer can also help you lose a few other things. You could lose your pride and your insistence that you do things yourself. Your need for others could strengthen your relationships with them. You could lose your illusions, which can only help you build your Future. You could lose your pettiness and some stress. After all, what does it matter if the neighbor’s dog goes on your lawn? Compared to cancer, that’s nothing. You could lose your trepidation and fear. Perhaps you’ve always wanted to try something new but were afraid. Well, now you remember that you don’t have all the time in the world, and you get off your butt and do it. Also, since cancer shook you up, maybe you want to shake up yourself a bit, lose your complacency and your predictability. There is no need to go back to the exact same life you had before cancer unless that is what you wanted to do.

Cancer can provide you with an opportunity. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy, but if you have to have cancer anyway, why not make the best of it?

Things We Lose, The Miserable

When something huge rocks your world, things get shaken up. When that happens, you can lose your sense of normalcy, your sense of security, your privacy, your career, your innocence, your confidence, your trust in the future, your health insurance, your savings, and/or your identity. You can also lose time while you put the rest of your life on hold in order to deal with this change. With the exception of time and innocence, you can get this all back.

One of the women I know hates the phrase “the new normal”. She claims that nothing is normal for her. She has a lousy attitude often and apparently cannot accept things as they are right now. You don’t have to be like that. You know that life changes, and you can adjust.

Your sense of security is shaken, but you know yourself and your body better, so you can build your security back up. The same for your confidence and your identity. Your privacy was altered for a while, but you can get it back. You can get a new career which has great health insurance. You can build back up your savings.

You don’t have to start over, just start where you are. You can create your Future and make it brighter than ever before.

Things We Lose, Relationships

During a significant change, your relationships with others may alter. For some, family security is lost as people realize that things won’t be this way forever. Others decide that they aren’t going to take the way they’ve been treated any more. Life is too short, and they won’t be a doormat. This can upset a lot of relationships. For others, life is too short to hold grudges, and relationships that have been distant may become mended. Some people decide that they have enough drama in their lives with cancer or other big change; they don’t need other people’s drama as well. Since some people live perpetually in a state of drama or crisis, those people may decide they aren’t being appreciated enough and leave, or the survivor may decide to leave them. With gynecologic cancer, sex changes, whether it be because of hormonal changes in the sex drive, emotional changes in the feelings of attractiveness, physical changes that require some alterations to preparation or position, or any other reason. Sex may never be the same way again, but it can be just as good if not better. Some people cannot handle thinking about losing someone to cancer or they may believe it to be contagious or whatever, and you may lose friends or family members. I could go into the trite “then they aren’t worth it”, but whether they’re worth it or not, it still sucks.

Life means change. No change means stagnation, and while you can survive with stagnation, you cannot live with it. Cancer and other significant changes condense a whole lot of change into a very little amount of time. But you can survive it, and when you come out on the other side, you do live. You may not have the same life, the same family, the same relationships as before, but you do live, and that’s more important.

Things We Lose, Our Bodies

Our bodies are more than just the physical. It’s also about how we relate to our bodies. Our health is compromised, true, but we can also lose our sense of well-being, how we feel about being ill. Our diet may change or our appetite may leave completely. We used to feel that we could rely upon our body, but that’s gone or at least shaken up. Sometimes women lose their body temperature regulator. It will always be too hot or too cold. We lose sleep, whether because our bodies don’t want to sleep or because we’re too anxious and can’t quiet our brains long enough to fall asleep. Some treatments interfere with memory or concentration, but that will come back.

We get some of these back. Some we have to learn to live with. Some we have to learn to live without. Life has been good training for this. All our lives, we’ve gained and lost people, perspectives, and parts of ourselves. We don’t have the bodies we had when we were teens, much less the ones we had as kids. We are no longer students or virgins or whatever other labels we may have had once upon a time. You can get through this. You can get through anything. And wonderfully, amazingly, it is up to you who you are on the other side.

Things We Lose, the Physical

We can lose a lot of things because of cancer or how others react to our having cancer. Here are a few. You can lose body parts, including ones that used to feel fantastic during sex. These body parts could include your uterus, which means no more periods. Sometimes you lose skin or hair because of the treatment type. You could also lose muscle strength or vein strength. You may lose your figure because the surgery puts things a little out of whack, or you’re unable to exercise like you used to, or because of attachments you may have to wear. Your overall health could suffer.

What you have to remember, though, is that you are more than your body. You are a wonderful human being no matter what you look like. You knew that once, whether that was just before you found out you had cancer or when you were a tiny baby. But you knew it once, and you will again.

7 Other Things We Feel, the Flip Side

Traumas and changes in your life don’t just bring out the bad or the negative in you, your life, and those around you. There are some benefits, if you let yourself see them.

Reflective – This is a big change. Some people see it as a time to take a good look at their lives, themselves, their relationships both with other people and with their Higher Power. This can be the proverbial kick in the pants that you need to make a few alterations that you wouldn’t otherwise notice.

Anticipation – Like I said in a previous post, major change can give you an out, and some people are eager to get that started. Other women I’ve met have quite jobs, sold businesses, started new careers, taken trips, begun new passions, or other things. Their life has changed and they are eager for it.

Joy – What was wrong is being made right in your body, and you can do the same for your life.

Gratefulness – When you have this huge problem in your life, you start to feel grateful for all the things that are going right. Friendships that are supportive and loving, days you can breathe easily, a warm cup of tea, and so many other things take on new meaning when contrasted with cancer.

Hopeful – This treatment will get my health back on track. This doctor knows what she’s doing. A year from now, I will be on that vacation I’ve always planned but never took. You see a life beyond cancer, and you feel hopeful.

Sisterhood – Some things you simply have to share with someone who’s been there, and that means other women who’ve been through gynecologic cancer. I’ve found some fantastic, wonderful women that I wouldn’t have met if it hadn’t been for getting cancer.

Not everything that you feel during a crisis or a change is negative. Some of it can be wonderful. You can wrap up these wonderful emotions and bring them with you into your Future.

5 More Things We Feel

Impatience – For crying out loud, we just want to get this over with and get on with our lives. But, something this big doesn’t really leave, not all at once. It lingers for a while, and it’ll pop up at unexpected moments. But it does fade away, and life does become wonderful again.

Guilt – Did I cause this? Am I being a burden on other people? Could I have done something different? If you feel guilty, then remember you’re not alone, and remember, would you be willing to help your friends if they were in the same situation? As for the cause, well, that’s in the past. If you think you may have caused it, then change whatever it is you were doing. And all this applies to so many other things in your life as well.

Fatigue – Fighting cancer is tiring. It’s tiring physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. Let yourself be tired and give yourself plenty of rest. You are not weak for needing to rest. You’re just human.

Weak – Like I said, you’re going through a major trauma. Needing to rely on others more is not weakness, just a necessary part of your recovery.

Disappointment – Oh, I could go on for pages about this. There are so many things to be disappointed in, but you have to remember that there are so many things to be grateful for, too.

After any upheaval in your life, these things will come up. You can deal with them. You are strong enough to deal with them. You’re even strong enough to deal with being weak, as ironic as it sounds. You can get through this and continue on into your Future.

5 Things We Feel

Failure – I was rather proud of the fact that I hadn’t had any major surgery. Out of my entire family, I was the only one who still had my tonsils and appendix. Well, that went out the window.

Anxiety – I didn’t know what would happen after the surgery. I hoped things would just go back to normal, but I knew it would take time, and I wasn’t sure how things would go. I felt especially anxious because some of my personal relationships weren’t working out, and I’m wasn’t sure that they’d survive my having cancer.

Loneliness – My husband and friends tried to understand, but I still felt lonely. I knew I wasn’t the only one who had had cancer. I knew that people I knew had had cancer. But, I was still stuck in my bedroom usually by myself, wondering how to get back to the “real world”. I enjoyed my healing nest, my cocoon, but it was a lonely place.

Sorrow and Sadness – There were tears on occasion, more of fear and loss than of sorrow. I was already doubting my worth as a woman and my attractiveness to have gynecologic cancer do too much more damage as it did with other women. I was already depressed and sad. These two emotions didn’t leap out as much as others did.

Confusion – Why was this happening to me? What’s going to happen in the future? Why are people acting the way they are? I’m the one with cancer, after all.

I felt all of these things and more, both during the time I was diagnosed and in treatment and in a lot of other times in my life. None of these will kill you, but they can make your life miserable for a while. It does get better. Just remember your Future and continue on your way.

Strong, Curiosity

Anything that tests you, any adversity you face whether you overcome it or not, can strengthen you. You can become stronger than ever, if you let yourself, and sometimes even if you don’t. You may become strong despite yourself.

I learned what I could about gynecologic cancer to a point. After a while, all the books just kept saying the same things, so I stopped. For others, it becomes a lifelong passion. One woman I know became an advocate who has done amazing things since her diagnosis. She has learned so much about ovarian cancer. It’s been said that people fear what they don’t understand. If there’s something you fear, learn more about it. It may help.

Resignation, Detached, Helplessness, Dependent

Oh, yeah. These are big. Resignation came after disbelief and betrayal for me. I’m not sure when I hit it, but I’m pretty sure I got at least some of it as I was being prepped for surgery. There was no reprieve. They were going to cut me open and remove pieces of my body. But, once I was resigned to that, I could change it in my head. They were curing me, healing me, helping my body to heal by taking away the parts that weren’t allowing my body to work right. But first, I had to accept, which is the sister emotion to resignation.

Some women felt very detached from their bodies. What was happening to them was happening “over there” while their souls and their “real selves” were “over here”. I had that a few times, though not as often.

Helplessness? Dependency? Yep. I wasn’t allowed to lift anything heavier than 10 pounds, which meant I couldn’t help shovel snow, I couldn’t help unbury my car which received a ticket for being buried by the snow plow. I couldn’t do this, I couldn’t do that. I had to depend on others to do it for me, and that’s not something I’ve ever enjoyed doing. I fought it, and I paid for it.

As negative as these seem, they’re just emotions, and you’re allowed to feel them. Denying them will only make them stronger, as you push them beneath the surface. Feel and then move on. I won’t tell you to let go or anything like that (though that’s a good idea). Sometimes you can’t. But you do have to move on into the Future.

Elation

This one I’m putting by itself because it’s one of those things that people don’t expect, but I understand it, though I didn’t go through this quite as much as some of the women I know.

Cancer, like divorce, getting fired, or other major changes in your life, gives you an out to a certain degree. Society has all of these expectations of you and how you’re supposed to act and react, and it’s stifling. But, when you’re faced with a possible death sentence, you just don’t care any more. Or you care, but you realize that it doesn’t matter any more. You can be who you want to be, and society, your family, your so-called friends can all go to hell. You are free, finally and at last, to be and do anything. You no longer have to play by the restrictions that society insists upon. You still have to play by the rules – no murder, no thieving, etc. But, you can dump the guy that your mother loves. You can get rid of the high-paying but incredibly-stressful job. You can take the trip to New Zealand that you’ve always wanted to take rather than putting it off until next year. You might not have a next year. You get to live, and no one gets to give you grief over it. Or if they do, you get to blow them off.

Another source of elation for some people is that they finally know what’s wrong. I’ve heard tales from other women with gynecologic cancer that they were sick or tired or achy for months if not years, and the doctors didn’t think anything was wrong or if they did they thought it was X, but the treatment for X wasn’t working. Now, at long last, there is an answer. The answer sucks, but there is an answer.

You don’t have to wait until you’re dying to start living, and you don’t have to rely upon the experts’ opinions if you know in your heart and in your gut that they’re wrong. You can do that now. If you need permission to do so, you have mine. I give you permission to trust yourself and to live fully. Good luck.