The Dilemma of Writing The End Creeps Closer
So many thoughts swirl around my head this morning. A second cup of coffee isn’t helping to sort them out. As usual, I turn to writing to help me understand and express where I’m at, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, relationally, and not least of all, physically.
Unless you’re visiting my website for the very first time, you probably already know 2024 has been a rough year in my world. I’m trying to write about it, and discovering that writing while still “in it” is more difficult than I expected. Oh, I could easily be journalistic about it – recount the facts, omit being reflective, avoid speculating about outcomes. And in fact my first draft, published too hastily on my blog, did just that.
But, that a memoir does not make. So here I am trying again. Yep, still learning my craft at this ridiculous age.
Today as I write, it feels like what actors would call breaking the fourth wall – that is, taking us all out of the story and explaining what I’m going through in trying to write about it. A kind of meta-process, if you will, a telling about how I’m telling about the story.
I laugh at myself here. Meta-process reminds me of the kind of bullshit academic mental pretzeling we did when getting my master’s degree in Whole Systems Design. Ironically, dancing with cancers require a whole systems approach, not just the conventional, physically focused one.
I was going to be brief. I meant to spare you all from the goriest details. But perhaps that’s not very interesting. The best memoirs steep themselves in the details, the color commentary as the sports guys might say.
For first time blog readers, what I’m talking about is this -- I was diagnosed with cancer in January 2024. I’ve been through a round chemo, and surgery to remove the originating tumor. Metastasis in the liver remains.
Some delayed side effects from the toxins literally dripped into my body over March and April are just now hitting me in August and September. Chemo-induced peripheral neuropathy (CIPN) feels like Fourth of July sparklers are burning in my feet which feel stuffed with marshmallows. Whether the aching in my hands is also CIPN – possible but as yet clinically undetermined – or the arthritis of getting old, I’m not sure. At the moment, irritating nerve pain and joint aches are the worst physical effects of the cancer.
Twice weekly acupuncture is helping tame the CIPN into submission. Two handsful of vitamins, minerals, and botanicals recommended by a naturopathic doctor are hopefully strengthening my chemo-damaged immune system and organs. Homeopathic arnica and hypericum throughout the day keep me functional, and as pain-free as possible. A joint and muscle cream, the standard conventional pharmaceutical of gabapentin, several tabs of melatonin, and flavorful TCH+CBD gummies help my nerves to stop firing at night so I can sleep. But that makes it hard to get fully conscious in the mornings.
One or two of these supplements are best taken with high fat food, say the bottles. I take in 8 grams of fat in a heaping tablespoon of peanut butter for that when I think about it. I’ve ordered a bag of Almond Joys. Two snack size pieces of those have almost as much fat. I don’t even feel guilty. Who knew cancer could be so diet-defying?
I’ve had to create an Excel spreadsheet with check boxes to keep track of everything I need to swallow, medically speaking. There is barely enough room on my condo’s counter between my fridge and stove to line up all the bottles, which even so are in two rows. As soon as I can get to the store, the kitchen will overflow like a green pharmacy with ingredients to make nutrient rich smoothies to choose over my preferred snickerdoodles. Haha! We’ll see if that works.
Nine months into what others call the journey, and what my primary care allopath calls my last chapters, I’m trying to write a memoir about all this.
Yesterday I pondered these writer questions -- Why do I feel an urge to write about this particular experience of cancer? What’s the lesson or message this memoir should present? Do I have one? How will it be different from all the other cancer memoirs out there?
Well, I tell myself between taking L-Glutamine and alpha lipoic acid, isn’t that all a matter of balancing what I feel the need to express as part of this dance with cancer? What do I want others to know about me? As a basically private person, the first answer is, nothing. Hmmm, then, why am I writing?
I chew on a couple slices of cheddar, and grape tomatoes as a midday snack and think: maybe there will be readers who have never known me who might find this memoir interesting, instructive, or useful. I’ve always liked thinking I was a helpful resource.
I put some pointed questions out on social media about how to structure this memoir. Should I keep it as simply blog installments no matter how long each one is? Would it be better to wait until a more complete story is written, publish that on Kindle, and then give excerpts on the blog? Do I keep editing the blog installments and just do more of them instead of the four I originally thought it would take?
Readers who answered these questions, bless you, didn’t care about blog length. Writers favored the book publishing first. What that told me was to free myself from the structure of only writing about (1) the medical, (2) the mental emotional, (3) the family and friends, and (4) the spiritual, and to be more thematic. You’ll see what I mean in a second.
__________
There is an old, old part of me – possibly a reincarnation left-over -- that is empowered by rebelling. I suspect I’ve been a rebel in several ways throughout a couple of lifetimes. It’s been such a familiar way to be since childhood. Now, what I need is a more authoritarian physician to try to be in control so I could resist and thereby activate my inner rebel.
Dumb, I know. Illogical. But there’s something about the mind needing to fight back by resisting treatment that feels essential to the body regaining wholistic balance.
As if thwarting this feisty part of my inner self, everyone tells me that all treatments are my choice, and I can start or stop them whenever I please. That’s suppose to give me “agency.” What it does instead is give me overwhelm.
I’ve been consumed with the choices around getting rid of the tumor and the mets. I’ve figured without chemo, the mets might kill me sooner than later, soon enough that I won’t need to worry about recurrence because from the conventional perspective I won’t achieve remission anyway.
I am dancing with cancer, not battling it. Battling is not where my empowerment comes from. My empowerment is not an Aries-tough trooper at war with reality. Instead, it’s a Scorpio-Capricorn subtle energy force that self-activates and calls my consciousness, my soul perhaps, to a more evolved interaction with what is.
Cancer has come to teach me something. I’m trying to pay attention. Listen closely. Understand what that lesson is. I’m not befriending it, certainly. But I’m accepting it like a misunderstood and thereby troublesome neighbor trying its best to get me to give it sustained attention, and empathy. And a cup of sugar now and then.
Everyone who gets cancer has their own personal way of framing what it means and what it does to them. My framing should not be mistaken for the relentless, adrenaline flowing positivity of the New Agey sort.
My equanimity approach is a quieter kind of non-reactive, non-panicked, non-positivity pumped up desire to go deeply into sensory awareness. To examine how my mind is making meaning out of what I’m told. To observe how my heart is opening to the whole range of emotion. And to be mindful of how my spirit is navigating my tendency to be snarky or amused when I’m tired and unable to maintain equanimity.
Cancer came to me at the perfect time in my life. I don’t have young kids or even teens to tend, get to school, check homework, and get to soccer practice. I don’t have a partner disappointed from my need to cancel vacations or be bothered when I prowl the house late at night when neuropathy makes it impossible to sit still, let alone sleep.
I’ve lived most of my life the way I wanted to, accomplished pretty much all of my deepest longings. Cancer came to me the year I turned 74. (Earlier, probably, but I didn’t know that.) I had never wanted to live much past that age anyway. I have no desperation to wring even five or ten more years of life out of this “ugly bag of mostly water”, as a Microbrain creature called the Star Trek TNG crew – although I like to think of myself as a not completely ugly bag of mostly lattes.
__________
All of this to explain to myself, if not also to you, my dear readers, is that what I’ve come to as a thematic perspective worth writing about is that refusing conventional treatment isn’t necessarily unwise.
You don’t have to have a death wish to prefer quality of life over quantity. Cancer patients are perfectly within our rights to choose alternative therapies and meet the disease without panic. A metaphysical receiving of the realities of the way cancer transforms my world helps me navigate the shock, confusion, overwhelm, and decision options that descend. May it help others, too.
So today, my idea for a book title, should I get that far in this storytelling, is this: With Mindfulness & Equanimity: A Memoir of Refusing Chemo. For now, to avoid blog confusion, these installments will probably continue to be tagged as The End Creeps Closer.
AI generated art credit: Vilkass at Pixabay / free for use license.
© 2024 Deah Curry . All Rights Reserved. No part of this digital mini-memoir published as a blog post may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, except for sharing the link to it on social media. Thank you for reading. Watch for parts three and four to be published on this blog only. Cover designed at PicMonkey..