I Am Subtly Changed

Poppies among the ruins at Ephesus in Turkey.  (photo by Jill Carroll)

This week I had the last of my appointments for a while at MD Anderson Cancer Center.  The tumor they cut from my chest was a Stage 1, everything else came out clean, and I'm done with treatment.  I'm as cancer free now as I've ever been.

I have another month or so of recovery from the chest cracking, but I can drive now (I hadn't been allowed to for the last 5 weeks) and I am pushing myself to get my strength back and not take so many naps during the day.  Nishta and I are making travel plans for the summer, and I've started booking speaking engagements for the fall.

So, in one sense, I'm getting back to my regular life.  In subtle ways, though, "regular life" has shifted for me.  Some of the shifts are manifestly evident to me; others are so barely detectable that I struggle to articulate them, but I "feel" them nevertheless.

I cry more easily now.  Many people who have open chest surgery report being markedly more emotional after the surgery than before.  I don't know why that is exactly . . . I don't know why I find myself tearing up nearly every day now.  There is no theme among the things that seem to prompt the tears.  I think I feel the fragility of the world - and us and me - more than before.  Things that seem solid are actually permeable.  Things that are beautiful and dear are also fleeting, making them all the more precious and our lives all the more blessed for having experienced them, if even just for a few moments.

I have a sense of vulnerability I didn't have a few months ago.  Rationally, most of know that we control relatively few things in our lives.  I don't control other people, outside circumstances, or my body.  To know something intellectually, however, doesn't mean I really "get it" in my gut.  

Now, I get it.  Illness - or tragedy or misfortune - strikes despite attempts at staving it off, and regardless of any "worthiness" however defined.  Like rain, it falls on the just and unjust alike.  This is just how it goes.  Given that, I revel in the days when I'm strong and free and well, and can do the things that are mine to do.

I experience interdependence with other people now more than before.  I've always been an "independent" person, a bit of a loner, having perhaps lots of acquaintances but few very close friends.  People say they experience me as a "self-sufficient" person who needs very little help or support in times of challenge.  I've experienced myself in that way for years.  

Not so much anymore.  It is abundantly clear to me that I would not have come through the last 5 months as well as I did (perhaps, not at all) without significant help from myriad people - those close to me and those who remain mostly strangers to me.  Of course, my partner Nishta has been a fortress to me in these months.  I owe her my life in many ways.  Our respective parents and family members have helped and hugged and loved me.  People in our close circle of friends have cooked and cleaned and given rides to and from the hospital, gone with me to appointments, sat with me during chemo weeks, and worn Kali jewelry to spur on the chemical hurricane designed to kill the cancer (see previous blog post).  Others have dropped off food, or sent cash and checks.  I received prayer shawls and quilts made by people I've never met.  Dozens sent cards.  Hundreds sent messages and prayers on facebook and twitter.  After a while, I couldn't keep up with all of it.  All I could do was just bask in it and be grateful for it.

Without all this, I would not be in the good shape I'm in today.  I needed help - and help that went beyond the professional medical help we paid for.  I am not self-sufficient.  No one is, really.  I am who I am because I've had help.  Knowing this pushes me to help others more than before, and to be humbled amidst any achievement because I know I didn't do it alone.

Don, the director of patient affairs at the hospital, wished me well as we finished up my last appointment.  He said for me to resume my life knowing that I'm a different person now.  Cancer changes you, he said, and therefore everything you do is changed as well.

I think, and can feel, that he's right.