Cancer Made Me a Shallower Person

I was reading on "My Crazy Sexy Life" just yesterday and found an entry by a woman discussing her cancer journey. She said that she had noticed an emotional cycle that she follows, where she is good with her diagnosis/NED status for a while, then she's anxious, then mad again, then depressed, then feels good for a while again, etc. It's good to read other stories like this, because I know for even the most seasoned survivor, the thought of all there is to deal with continually, while trying to lead a "normal life" can be so daunting. The scans and the waiting for results, for me, are especially killer.
But then I was listening to Elizabeth Lesser on the radio yesterday, and she made an interesting point. She said that we have to think about life as if it is a river, and we can fight it the whole way, trying to get upstream against the current, insisting that things go our way, living in a constant state of struggle. Or we can succumb to the river, let go, float, enjoy the ride, and accept where we are being taken. It is all a choice.
It's so easy to say that- so easy to say let go, let go of all the plans you made and all the dreams you had about what your life would be.
But when the time comes to fight, to do the awful treatment and have the surgery and spend so much time in recovery- when it comes time to make the choice to continue living no matter the cost- it isn't the picture we had created of our life that we are fighting for. What we are fighting for more days here, regardless of our plans, regardless of whether they are days spent floating somewhere we never planned on going or struggling against the current. And that's the thing that those cancer patients you talk to( -you know, the ones with that light behind their eyes-) seem to have gotten during their journey. That any day here is worth the fight.
It's noble and beautiful to come out of the situation with that new view. That every breath is worth a prayer of a thousand thanks.

But how did they get there? To the point where they are really the person that is okay with letting the river take them wherever it is going? Well, according to Elizabeth Lesser, it's really not so hard to be that person, whether we have had a cancer experience or not. And this is what she said that really blew me away: she said that in order to love your life no matter what, that every single day, you have to sit still. And in sitting still, we will be faced with all kinds of things: our disappointments, and anger, or fear, sadness, guilt, or even physical pain. As all these emotions and feelings arise, she said, you take note of them objectively and without any judgment.
That's it.
That's the key to unconditional happiness.

Because, just like sneaky Mr. Miyagi using chores and car washes to teach Ralph Macchio the art of perseverance, sitting in the midst of our reality and our pain little by little teaches us that we can survive anything and still be happy in the midst of it. When we allow what is to be, then, like you are in the river, you will float along and move through it.
Crazy.
Why is it when we admit our pain that we move through it so much faster? Because reality pushes on with or without us, whether we live in denial or not? Because struggling against the current is exhausting? Because acceptance saves us thousands of minutes of grief? Because time itself is the thief?

I guess the real answer is who cares why? It just does. The river will take us exactly where we need to go. There are no accidents.
Even if we fight it, we are still being pushed to the exact place we are supposed to be the whole time.

And if it's as easy as Mrs. Lesser is telling us, if I can love my life no matter how badly it can hurt, well, I'm sitting still every day.
And I'm making it a point to float on my back from here on out.

-MM

My Story

In May 2005, months before I had turned 31 years old, I was working as a medical assistant in a not-for- profit clinic. I had moved to Dallas from San Diego the previous December to be with my dad who had terminal renal cell carcinoma. He past away in January and I decided to stay in Texas, near my family, for a while. I took the job at the clinic because I really loved the doctors that worked there- they really viewed their position as doctors as a means to serve society- and needed work, but mostly because I felt they were doing good things and I needed to be out of the house, keeping myself busy, not wallowing in grief.
The job did not offer insurance, but I did not plan on staying there long-term, so I wasn't worried about it. The doctors really took care of their nurses, though, and one day, while showing a nurse friend my pedicure, I asked a doc to take a look at a mole on my toe. The mole had been there my whole life, and had within the last year started to bleed. It sat square near the top of my smallest toe, but I was a runner, and ran about 25 miles a week, so I always assumed it was just irritated from that. Dr. Daya told me to go across the street to a dermatologist friend of his to have it removed. The derma took a look at it and said it was probably nothing to worry about, but needed to come off. It was perfectly symmetrical, had clear borders and normal color. I asked how much the lab fees would be because I was paying cash and not making great money. I also asked if it could be sent diagnostic lab I was familiar with, simply because I knew their prices. He said we would work it out but insisted on using a laboratory which specialized in derma cases. They gave me the number to an automated system and said the lab results would be ready in a week. I didn't think much of it.
A week later the doctor I was working for, Dr. Daya, called me into an exam room. I was a little freaked because the only reason I could conceive of him wanting to talk to me one-on-one was because I had done something wrong and was going to be in trouble. He was looking at the floor and very solemn, and told me he was sorry to be the one to tell me, but that I had cancer. "Nodular malignant melanoma," he said, "a very aggressive form of skin cancer." He said I needed to get immediate care or that I was in danger of dieing.

A month after the diagnosis, I finally found someone to who would see me even if I didn't have insurance. It took weeks of begging and searching and networking, but we finally found Dr. Beitch and Dr. Venkatessan. So, here's the short version:
May 2005- Diagnosed at Stage II.
June 2005- I went to an outpatient hospital and had the skin and some of the flesh around my toe removed, a skin graft taken from my thigh, and 3 lymph nodes from my groin to determine if the cancer had spread. Two weeks later the results came in that the borders around the skin left on my foot were positive for melanoma as well as 1 of the 3 lymph nodes. Now considered Stage IIIc.
July 2005- I had my smallest toe, part of my foot, and all 16 lymph nodes from my groin removed in outpatient surgery.
Outpatient surgery is no fun, especially if there is abdominal surgery involved. The incision started about half way down my thigh, crossed over just above my hip, and stopped about 3 inches above the hip bone. They also removed my little pinky toe and a small part of my foot at the same time. It was, how do you say?, intensely painful, especially since I didn't have insurance at the time and had to do a "day surgery," which basically meant that after I came to, I had to get the hee-haw outta there. That meant getting out of the bed and into a wheelchair, out of the wheelchair and into a car, out of the car and walking into the house. Ouch. Yes, there were pain meds, but nothing really prepares you for walking (or should I say attempting to walk? more like dragging myself on crutches) just hours after they staple (87 staples, by the way) you shut. A full 10 on the one-to-ten pain scale. I didn't even know that pain like that could exist. Forget childbirth, if that's what it's like.
August 2005- I began high dose Interferon in a hospital. Interferon is a biological therapy/ immunotherapy for high risk patients. The treatment is a little dangerous and has pretty serious side effects so it required 5 day hospital stays for 4 weeks.
September 2005- The treatment lowers your ability to fight infection, and in early Sept I discovered that my leg was red and tender, and I had 102 fever. I had contracted a staph infection and had to stay another 3 weeks in the hospital fighting that.
October 2005- I was sent home and Rxed low dose Interferon to be self administed by injection for the next 11 months. I would be very sick and unable to work. Off and on through the year I was sick, jaudiced, and had heart palpitations and trouble remaining ambulatory. Spent some of the time in a wheel chair.
October 2006- Finished the treatments, but the treatment had caused a condition similiar to chronic fatigue syndrome. Spent a full year and a half combating those symptoms.
June 2007- Routine PET scan showed an inflamed inguinal node which doctors were concerned was melanoma. Node was removed but no evidence of disease found.
Present- The majority of the symptoms from Interferon have subsided. Currently NED (no evidence of disease.)

There is no remission for melanoma, because there is no cure, and, essentially, it's going to come back. There isn't even really a treatment for it. Even Interferon, which I took for a year, is rarely Rxed anymore because the results are so iffy (only a 6%-20% chance of staving off disease) and the side effects are so horrendous. Interleukin 2 (or IL-2) is also a treatment option, but has about the same results and even worse on the side effect side. I prefer quality of life to doing a treatment like that again. According to the American Cancer Society and most of the doctors I've seen over the last 3 years (and there have been a lot!) my chance of living to 2010 ranges from around 27% to around 52% and my chance of living to 2015 ranges from around 22% to around 37%. But, to quote Fight Club, "On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero." In a way, I'm lucky because at least I'm not going to work some shit job that I hate in the hopes of one day, after retirement or something, enjoying life. I enjoy it now. I live as fully as I can. And it's a good life.
There are some very hopeful treatments for melanoma in clinical trials now, such as vaccines. But until some kind of effective treatment comes out, I am not getting regular scans. My oncologist kinda said, "What's the point? There's no treatment anyway." and I agree. If I get scans every 6 months, I'll be a nervous wreck until the next one. So, I'm taking it as it is.
I'm hopeful about the future. But more importantly, I love the present. It's all we have, anyway.