P joined me for a workout yesterday. On those Sundays when the man-cub has Jujitsu I like to sneak in an extra workout — P joined me for one of those. It was good to have her company.
She did all the circuits that I did, though, she modified them a bit to keep from over doing it since this was essentially the first work out in a while. She and D have been fairly regular in their walks and I’m glad of that. As with all working couples with kids it is hard to sneak time out for “dates”. And perhaps not the most romantic, yet, I was glad to share the gym with her and coach her on stuff.
I like to warm up with intervals on the treadmill (if I’m indoors) so 15 minutes of that to start with. Then P moved over to the Gravitron which is a cool machine for doing assisted pull ups and dips, and she paired that with Good Mornings. We moved over to the Squat rack and the Incline Bench Press and did reversing pyramids on those two exercises, which means 10, 8, 6, 4, 2 of one while the other goes, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10. We set up a medi-ball to squat down too so that we were going deep, well past parallel. Then back to the treadmills for another 15 minutes of intervals. And then we finished with another circuit — popularly known as “core”:
Farmers Walk
4 Way Neck Machine
Standing Cable Crunches
Diagonal Plate Raises
Farmers Walk
Roll outs
Good mornings
Then I dropped her off at D’s house and they walked 3.5 miles. I was really happy to see her feeling so energetic after just a week off from the chemo.
B: Tiresome. That is what cancer has become. Not tiresome in an angry or frustrated way. Not tired in an exhausted sense, but in a tedious way. At the outset the newness, the fear, the urgency, pushed treatment along. It was hard to keep our eye on the ball, because we were jostled and bounced around. Now it is hard, for me at least, to keep my eye on the ball, because I’m dozing off. Literally. P, is starting to show cumulative effects of the chemo. But how many times can we write about her going to bed early? Or working from home to preserve her energy? What does it mean to say that cancer treatment has become boring? It still takes up a big space in the room. We still care a lot about the outcome, and daily, even hourly, we check in with P. But treatment and living with treatment is tiresome . A while back, I mentioned a metaphor of hiking switchbacks and I think that was really apt.
For me there is a nervousness that goes along with boredom and feeling dozy. I snap awake with a jolt of adrenaline, starting and flailing about a bit as I try to re-orient. We aren’t out of the woods yet and so I don’t want to relax too soon.
P: Marathon, switchback…you pick. Endurance.
Just as I started getting back in the swing, hair growing, going to work, more active, I must slow the pace. Hair has slowed, and some has fallen out. I need more naps. OK. We can do this.
Yea, I’m tired. No entries all week. After 8 weeks of infusions, we are noticing more the cumulative effects of treatment. On Thursday after dinner I just put on my comfy clothes and crashed. From my vantage point I slept very soundly. B said I was a bit restless. So much of life feels normal to me. I ‘m up and going to work every day. I’m cooking sometimes. I’m skiing on the weekends, doing chores during the week. Going to book club and staying out “late” with my pals. I’m actually reading and finishing books. The part that does not feel normal is the fact that it feels too good to close my eyes at any time of day.
I am grateful beyond belief that I can work at my own pace and from home. I’ll catch up on what I slept through this afternoon, tomorrow or on the weekends.
I can muster up energy most of the time. For example, I could go skiing again today. BUT I’m deciding to stay put and conserve. I just know that it would take a lot out of me trying to stay warm with sub zero wind chill. My friend L who has much experience with breast cancer treatments has talked to me over and over about the conservation of energy. It’s really the long haul thing. I could fool myself into thinking that an activity would be fine, but it all seems to add up. I find myself wanting to be active and yet aware that we still have 4 weeks of infusions left, and my body is not recovering to normal before the next invasion hits. B came home Thursday and said “We had ‘fun with weights’ today…my favorite workout!” He was all sweetness and light, it was so cool. I wanted to hear every detail…from the recliner. I’m finding that the day I tire most is on Thursday at this point. It seems that the effects last longer and longer after each infusion. This is something we saw back in the fall with AC, but it felt more dramatic with that powerful cocktail.
As far as other stuff my gut just doesn’t feel right. I don’t really know how to describe it. I don’t feel nauseous, thank heavens. I do have an appetite sometimes. It’s like my digestive system is tired and working really slow. I’ve been taking Rhubarb 17 and Diagnostic Tablets (both herbs) which help sometimes, but definitely not completely.
Fatigue, gut awareness and pressure in my sinuses behind my eyes are the biggies right now. My skin seems to be in good shape, probably because I’m just taking care of it better than I ever have. (Thanks to the sweeeeeet care package from my niece D, full of good things for the bod.) Flesh wounds take a little longer to heal. On the other hand I have been humming and singing a lot. I feel happy and silly a lot of the time. We have been laughing a lot together. I’ve been so in the moment it has been wonderful for my spirit.
Love continues to pour in, cards, calls, prayers. Thank you for sticking with us, readers. It really helps. I don’t know if you know just how much.
Some who know me know that I’ve got a whole another storyline of psycho-drama in my life. I’ll spare the details. But suffice it to say that some of that drama came to full bloom this week. In any case progress was made, nobody died or went insane. However, in the midst of it P, speculated that my Karmic baggage must be really screwed up. I suppose a person could be offended by that, but, it tickled my funny bone. She speculated that in a previous life I must have been Hitler or something — which again probably passes over to poor taste, but, the absurdity caused both of us a fit of the giggles. I argued that Hitler probably came back as snail scum, or, as an intestinal parasite, rather, that I was probably just your garden variety axe murderer in my previous life (perhaps like Maggie Smith’s character “Grace Hawkins” in the movie “Keeping Mum”). The irony and absurdity got us laughing. The whole thing has real potential for a monologue or a stand up routine. We tried it out on the kids and it really bothered A. She was really defensive of me and she didn’t really see the humor — it is touching that she would go to bat for me. I think perhaps physical and emotional tiredness made it more funny for P and I — kinda giddy.
In any case I found these guys singing the blues and I thought (since, I’m a musical dunce) that I’d let them sing for me. Just, glad it is the weekend.
Two monks were once traveling together down a muddy road. A heavy rain was falling. Coming around the bend, they met a lovely girl in a silk kimono and sash, unable to cross the intersection. “Come on, girl,” said the first monk. Lifting her in his arms, he carried her over the mud. The second monk did not speak again until that night when they reached a lodging temple. Then he no longer could restrain himself. “We monks don’t go near females,” he said. “It is dangerous. Why did you do that?” “I left the girl there,” the first monk said. “Are you still carrying her?”
I think that this story is a lot of what I was exploring in our friend’s account of her struggle with front squats. For me, the first cycle of chemo, was fairly overwhelming, and I wasn’t even taking the drugs. The surgery was also full of angst. And so, I kept my eyes down. I looked out about a week and no further. I would look at today on the calender and do exactly what I had to do and just that: work, taxi the kids around, go to doctor’s appointments. But, as I mentioned, the feel of treatment, and, our self-identity; that of cancer survivor, has changed. A future, aware of, but, not dominated by cancer extends around us.
I think the wisdom I see S exhibiting in her struggle with front squats is that we carry our emotional burdens around and forget to put them down. In order to lift the barbell she had to stop a moment and put down the other burdens she carries in order to deal with the immediate challenge of the barbell. And to my mind that is the same lesson that the two Zen monks teach us — and so my analogy of gym, and church and mediation hall extends a bit further. I’m not certain S is aware of that, or that she thinks about it in that way — rather that is my understanding, or mis-understanding. Yet, I dare any man here to stop and have a little cry before they go for a 1 rep max. Generally, we are so emotionally constipated, that were we to let our guard down to do this we would instead be overwhelmed by weeping. Weeping about the gentleness we wanted our fathers’ to show us, angry that we were mocked for any sign of gentleness or compassion by adults and peers, weeping about our own fears of inadequacy and unavailability to and for our children, weeping at our losses of mentors, and friends, and so on, and so on…. It is unfortunate that in the story girl=danger, we risk, re-creating the misogyny implicit in our culture and gender if we are not careful. Yet, we carry our emotions bound up in boxes, boxes wrapped in plain brown paper, so that we don’t even know what they contain, and yet, we carry them. I have wept more in the last year then in the last 30. I have cried in pride of my children. I have wept over the burden of ailing parents. I have mourned P, and my own mortality, brought into sharp contrast by cancer. Am I done, probably, not. Am I “good” because of it, certainly not — merely human and finally waking up to it.
I don’t think that P and I will ever be able to put all of cancer down. And yet at the end of the day, I don’t want to be the monk that carries the “girl” all day long. Moreover, not all about cancer has been “bad” we have been overwhelmed by generosity, kindness and love, so much love, love from unexpected quarters. We are by no means done with treatment, 6 more weeks of chemo, 4 weeks of rest, and then 4 weeks of daily radiation. And then as P describes, ongoing Tamoxifen, upto 5 years, and 6 and 12 month check ups with rounds of tests each. Yet, we are almost ready to exhale, and to take another breath as life takes on a new normal.
It has been awhile since I’ve posted. Perhaps I’ve been holding my breath. Certainly, surgery was a turning point in the treatment. The grain of the experience subsequently has taken on an entirely different feel. P met with the Surgeon at the regular scheduled after visit. And there the Surgeon made the claim that, “All the cancer is gone now.” Some of my silence is, perhaps, I think trying to balance and adjust to being cancer survivors. What is the flavor of hope in a world of diminished expectations? Yesterday the Oncologist hedged a bit on the notion that the cancer was gone. That hedging certainly isn’t enough to tip us into despair, but, it raises questions. Is this just Surgeons and Oncologists talking past each other? We’ve seen that before. Is it the lenses of statistics that describe everyone and no one? We are particular people. I suspect that we will live with these questions, hopefully, for a long time to come.
This round of chemo seems to have less side effects, although, I’m beginning to see a cumulative effect of fatigue. P, is too, but, she is Winnie-the-poohing through. And that brings to mind some observations I’ve made about the toughness of women. Certainly, I risk overstatement, over generalization. But, I was intrigued to hear a dear friend, S, tell about her challenges with front squats in the gym. I don’t recall exactly the goal she had set, whether it was 1 rep max, or, what, but, in working up to it, she felt the tension rise, and the fear. And she went off to the side and had a little cry and centered up. And after that moment of self care came back and kicked gravities ass.
There is a subtlety to this, that many guys, myself included, miss altogether. Guys tend to kick their own asses into accomplishment. We take ourselves by the scruff of the neck and shake ourselves, tell ourselves to man up, shout a bit, kick furniture or whatever. But, to my mind, this psyching up is similar to Winnie-the-poohing through — not identical, but similar, there is something fictional, or one dimensional about them. Indeed P questions this herself when she asks if she has “tallitude”. I think P is struggling to get to and articulate the more subtle toughness that our friend S was exploring. I’ve seen it in her. But, it is a hard thing to talk about being gentle with oneself and at the same time grapple with the crushing physical or emotional weight of some challenge real or arti-factual.
P, wants to explore mortality and I think that is fine. Seeing ones own death is part of many spiritual practices. Yet, just at the moment I find myself struggling more immediately with the diminished expectations of middle-age, with a life direction etched and changed by disease. I’m not one for attending church, or at least, “church” as we often think about it. Yet, I’m daily in the gym. Is the gym my sanctuary? Are the exercise circuits my rituals? Are the 3-rep max efforts, and the personal records the sacraments? I find my own mentality changing as I mature and I continue with the arti-factual challenges of the weights, of gravity. I scream at myself less, I don’t let the failure swamp me in negativity. Instead, I break big challenges, say 21 reps, into 3 small challenges of 7 reps and I celebrate each accomplishment as I achieve it. If, I truly fail at something, I put it in the future, “I’ll try that again next week, I bet I can do better.” Or, when I hear myself slipping into negative self talk, I turn the statement around,from, “I can’t”, to, “That is really hard, but, I love the challenge!” I think this is closer to the toughness our friend showed when she stopped and relieved herself of the tension and fear, “a little cry” and then went back to the battle. Sure it was the little battle of front squats, an arti-fact of the gym, but, perhaps too an analog to other challenges in her life.
I wonder if because we create micro-environments, like church, or the gym, and practice elements of life in them if we don’t then imagine that life itself is practice for something bigger, hence, heaven and hell. What I’m seeing however, from P’s stories about “angels” (basically, just other folks, whose shit stinks too, but, who, seize the moment to “cry”, or rather to be honest, and vulnerable with another) that really life is enough. Death will take care of itself, but, life, is strange, beautiful, awesome, huge, ugly, frightening, and petty yet absolutely must be attended to.
From Tennyson’s Ulysses:
Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’ We are not now that strength which in the old days Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are; One equal-temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Oddly the pathology report hit me almost as hard as the original diagnosis. Only a little of my energy is spent on wondering why that is. The rest is focused on getting centered again.
“The Pony” is in the people who have circled around us and are supporting us with love, and food. “The Pony” is employers who are accommodating both of us and our struggle. “The Pony” is the visiting Nurses Brigade. “The Pony” is the Surgeon, one of the States best, who seems to almost be taking this cancer as a personal affront. “The Pony” is the Oncologist, full of piss and vinegar, who believes there is no room for ego in the exam room. I am humbled by this all. I am a very private person, perhaps even shy, and so I would not expect this kind of outpouring. “The Pony” is lifetime partner who sparkles and lights up the room and draws friends and family and love to her and so vicariously I get to learn about these things.
I have struggled with the surgery, rather quietly, because I didn’t want to be the Eeyore to P’s Winne-the-Pooh. But, I’m not happy with this disease, at times I’m angry, and it is a struggle to point that anger in the right direction. The disfigurment that the disease has caused my buddy and lover SUCKS. The amputation of a breast is important to remove the cancerous cells, the Surgeon is a craftswoman, but it is an amputation all the same and it SUCKS. Watching chemo kick her ass, SUCKED. Knowing that she will possibly have a couple of numb toes, perhaps fingers, for the rest of her life as a side effect of the next round of chemo, SUCKS. Knowing that we likely won’t escape radiation SUCKS.
I’m willing to eat this shit sandwich and ask for seconds, however, if in the end I get to spend more time with this amazing woman.
Surgery went well and P is resting overnight in the hospital, as planned. I expect to bring her home in the morning. Thank you all for your thoughts. We will have more details in the near future.