Cancer really changes you

 To anyone who has gone through this cancer, any other cancer, or a serious medical condition or diagnosis, this is not really anything new.  To anyone that this is their first brush with their own cancer diagnosis, it truly does change you.

Many have likened this change to the grief process.  Feeling all of the steps of grief at once is very confusing for myself and for my spouse.  At times, I isolate and will shun anything from the outside as I turn inward.  I do not want to remind myself of my bodily changes and lack of any sexual functioning.  I cannot see beyond that fact and wish to remain inside my own head fixating on those facts.  I cannot move forward from those losses.  

This inward thought process brings about the anger.  Anger from not accepting or rolling with the changes to my body from the diagnosis or treatment.  It comes out in many forms and is hurtful to others, but at that moment, it just comes out.  By the time it is out, it is too late and your brain then shouts at you - YOU ASSHOLE, WHY DID YOU SAY THAT?  Before you know it, it is out there and cannot be taken back or explained.  It is just there, hanging in the room.  Then comes more anger of being inconsiderate, then back to isolation...and we close the circle!

Since we are now in a vicious circle of anger and isolation, let's throw in a dose of depression just for fun.  When you sit down and review everything that is going on with your life - cancer diagnosis, surgery, incontinence, ED, etc., things just pile up.  Will it ever get better?  Since we are on that vicious cycle, let's turn it into a hamster wheel and go very slowly around in circles.

I say very slowly, because reflecting on life to this point, it seems to have flown by.  The past 40 years seem to be a blur.  The past seems to be a blink - marriage, jobs, kids, degrees, and everything else just seems to be a shrinking vision in the rear view mirror and you are flying about 80 miles per hour.  The images keep getting smaller and smaller, while the cancer diagnosis, ED, incontenence, etc. seem to be that large tanker truck that is tailgating you in the rear view mirror.  Sort of like the movie "Duel" with Dennis Weaver, that truck is always there.  Just when you think you have out run it or lost it somehow, it is right there is the mirror....

When and how do you escape the hamster wheel and return to normal life?  When and how do you accept the hand that has been dealt and just give in to your partner and hope they have the left and right bower (euchre reference) and just throw the cards as they come up.  I attend groups and see and hear others who are laughing about it all and think - what is so funny about all this shit?!  How can you sit there and laugh about the losses?  Why can't I see life in the same way and be thankful of an early diagnosis and surgery which greatly increases my chances of long term normality (even without a prostate).  I should be, but I keep seeing that damn truck in the mirror and just like the movie, sweating my balls trying to outrun it and out fox it to go along my merry way.

Another change, one that I am sure many who have serious medical issues notice is the fragility of what we know as life.  You see things and process things differently now.  There are so many nuances that many do not notice that you do (unless you are trained in mental health, then it is second nature to you as I have discovered).  You listen to stories about death and living differently.  You view family differently and how fragile everything is.  You want your family to want you in their lives more to enjoy what you may have passed when they were young.  You want to make up for the lost time in the past by living now.  The problem is they are young adults living life as you did when you were that age.  Dare I say it - young and stupid about the future and how fragile it all is?  You want to make up for those times and more, but when it doesn't happen, it just feeds another thing onto the hamster wheel - inadequacy.  You feel that life has past and you are now irrelevant.  It could be the diagnosis, or even just getting older, but regardless, it is another rung on the wheel that is creating that vicious circle that now seems to be normal - even though I don't agree with this normal.