Repetition, Recognition, and Limitations

Part of being a cancer patient, especially with a lot of recurrence, you get sort of used to doing things again, and again, and again, and again. Tests, exams, blood work, doctor appointments, arguing w/ the insurance company, surgeries, radiation, hearing bad news, hearing decent news, hearing hopeful news, repeating said news to family, figuring out the best way to repeat news to friends. Stop. Repeat.

Maybe that's why repeating other life events just seems... natural... to me now. I'm repeating the Bar exam, I'm repeating my job search... I've been comparing my life to limbo a lot, but now that I think about it... it's a lot more like repeat. Now I'm sure it can't stay like this... but for right now, I'm getting to so everything again.

While I started Bar prep classes again yesterday... its actually the job interview I had yesterday that sort of set off this particular post. I wasn't planning on applying for any jobs right now. My classes are at night, the Bar is at the end of February. Obviously, I'm going to spend most every waking minute cramming. So the idea of working isn't particularly high on my list of objectives right now. But then a friend of mine said someone told him about a position working for a congressman, and he wanted to pass my resume along, and it just sounded really cool. And so, I took on my 7th ( I think) interview.

I mean it had it's downfalls... no pay... a year long commitment... really bad pay. But it was a step in the door for something I would be interested in doing. So I went to the interview, she liked me, said I was way overqualified for the job, then asked if I really thought I could juggle studying for the bar and working full time. A recent lawyer herself... I had to be honest... as much as I wanted the job it meant risking another failure, and she understood completely. I would basically be a glorified secretary for a year... it was a step forward but a massive leap back. She also knew that it would be a buffer position for me. Something I would just want to do to fill in until I got my license. She basically said all the things I've considered when looking for in between jobs. And once we got that out in the air, we just chatted like new friends comparing our lives and just... talking.

Mom, in her ever supportive role, reacted by telling me how she worked full time, while raising me, pulling 16 credits, and a 3.8 GPA and still found time to study somewhere in between. I hate, hate, hate, hate, when she compares her life to mine. I appreciate that it was hard for her... I was there... There's about 50 million perfectly true responses I could make to her but choose not to. And even now, it sounds a little too contemptuous to write out. So I'm just going to say I know it was hard for her... but it was a significantly different situation. She went on to even be like, "I wonder if I was a good mother then," and "I wonder how we kept it together then." My response was, " I wasn't a heathen wild teenager." Which basically meant I took care of myself, the house, and kept things working. It wasn't particularly hard... sort of just came naturally to be very prudent and responsible because I could easily see things going all to hell if I wasn't. A remarkably common theme when looking at how I've dealt with the whole cancer bit.

Sorry, I'm sort of pointlessly rambling here. Basically I just don't think she ever looked at the things I was doing to keep things going. Just like now she doesn't look at what I'm dealing with; she only knows how to see what she's doing or has done.

So... I don't want to say I didn't get the job. I think if I had committed she would have taken me in a heartbeat... But I was honest. I was actually honest about what I thought my limitations were. A first for me. And so we agreed that come March, when I'm done w/ the Bar, I'm to give her a call and see if anything is open.

I think for the first time in my life I am afraid to see where my limitations actually are. I've spent a lot of time pushing myself to the limits. Taking on too much work. Trying to do too much in life. And it's been absolutely fantastic. But I'm afraid that right now, if I push it and cross the line... I'll be stuck here forever. This is new to me. Even before cancer, I tried to push what I could handle (of course in a responsible and prudent over-achiever manner... not a crazy partier sense). Threats to my physical life sort of magnified that attitude. But now... its my long-term life that's threatened.

Am I growing up? Am I just growing tired? Is this just a phase? I don't know... but I know its what I need to do.

Human pin cushion

As per usual... I'm waiting and I'm scarred. It's my favorite week of February. The week where i get poked and prodded, and find out if I'm still cancer free. I've decided that needles fuck with me. I don't really mind them so much, I'm fine with the physical part of being poked. But what sucks is that I'm not so great about thinking about it. It started Friday; blood work for a pregnancy test. Couldn't just pee on a stick, no, for the testing I'm doing they actually needed a serum... Tomorrow is the first injection of thyrogen, followed by a second one on Tuesday, then blood work on wed. and more blood work on Friday followed by an ultrasound and potential biopsy, and then i see my doctor on Monday for the results... Human Pin Cushion.

Thyrogen... side effects: nausea, headaches, etc... basically, even if I handled this stuff half as well as i did in the beginning, the side effects alone would mean I'm not going to be a shiny happy person. It's also one of those things you can't take when your preggers... hence the blood work pregnancy test, nor do you wanna get knocked up within 6 months afterwords... not that I would, but I dislike having my options taken away

I hate ultrasounds... its my least favorite part about being sick. I would rather just be cut open or radiated... its irrational, but its the truth.

I'm tired. And I'm tired of having to deal with this stuff. It wears on you. Tares you down bit by bit. I don't have hope... I don't hope that things will go well this time... its too crushing when it doesn't... I just wait... start planning... be prepared for the worst... have the back up plan. Its harder this year. I'm about to graduate school... I'm supposed to be making plans and back up plans for my regular life... having to create back up plans in case I'm sick... ha... sigh...

Back to being tired... I realize I'm doing a lot... I do a lot so i don't have enough time to sit and think too much... I rationalized if I'm too busy to deal with being sick, clearly I can't get sick... I discovered this time last year that was not how the real world actually likes to work.

But being tired started over break. I thought maybe it was just that i needed the rest. But I'm still sleeping... if I don't make myself get up, I sleep for at least 12 hours... all the time. I go to bed earlier than i ever have... EVER. and i keep gaining weight. They kept dropping my meds... I'm afraid they've dropped too low. I'm going to ask if they will put me on a T3, T4 regiment. I hear that using both helps with things like mood. Doctors tend to only treat what they see is necessary and skip what makes the brain happy... a hippie hypnotist told me this. Yes, I went to see a Hypnotist... He hit more nerves than your normal head shrink does in the first 5 minutes of talking.... and that was before he tried to hypnotize me... it was just something to try. But so I started reading up, and decided I really haven't felt normal in 4 years.

oh yeah... that's the other head fuck. Next Monday is 4 years. 4 years since i got a phone call congratulating me about getting in the the University of Richmond School of law... the first law school i got into... followed by 3 hours later getting a call telling me the biopsy had come back "suspicious"... It was he first realization i had cancer. So no pressure this week at all. I'm not worried to the point of being unfocused. I'm not panicking. Irrationally planning. Or snapping at people b/c they can't quite deal with their personal problems at all. *sarcasm* Oh yeah, I don't deal well with compassion anymore. People and their personal problems should just shove it if they made other commitments. People who use their shit as excuses, can kiss my ass if they really think they're going to get compassion out of me, or level their workload on me to pick up their slack. We all have issues. You get as much slack as I would expect, and part of growing up is knowing when you are more of a problem than a help in a project or to a team, and sucking it up and pulling out if you can't juggle accordingly.

Sigh... I was so much stronger than this 4 years ago. I wish nothing phased me... the way it did then.... now i border between numb and more tightly wound than anyone on the planet.

2 long hours...

"Your case is... interesting." This is the last thing you really want to hear a doctor say to you... ever. But especially not when "you're case" involves 4 years of battling a type of cancer that is supposedly the "best" cancer to have, and the "easiest" to treat. I could really just create a blog dedicated solely to the idiotic things doctors tend to say. I'm almost half sure since I came around they've been forced to change their words just because I've proved to be an exception to almost every rule. But I get ahead of myself here.

It's also not an especially good phrase to say when the patient has been sitting around waiting for over two hours. When the intern comes in and also starts off by saying, "I've been reading through your file..." looks down at the 3 inch folder in front of him then turns to scroll through the computer version, "... it's really complicated,"... stops, winces, he knows that's the wrong thing to say... "its interesting." I hold my tongue from retorting something along the lines of, "well I think its pretty interesting that you are like a 6'7" Asian kid. Lets get sticks and poke each other out of fascination." I've had a bitter week and this is really the last place I want to be.

It does not help that I've been tired... yes I've been tired since May, I think. I also can't breathe, my eye tears up like its the only part of my body willing to outwardly portray how I feel more or less all the time. I'm only here for a check up; to meet my new doctor; to get my blood work done, just like i do every few months... is it 6 or 3 now? I'm never sure. I show up when I can be squeezed in. The doctor I've been seeing for years was offered a better position in San Francisco; I hope in a year to follow her. The nurse who takes care of me, has also changed locations, though just down the road... her missing presence is almost crushing to a person who strives on a certain level of continuity.

Two hours here. Its an endocrine clinic. Emphasizing diabetes and how to take care of that... only a few pamphlets for the thyroid cancer patients. And lets face it... by this point, all I can do is sort of scoff at such things.

This new doctor looks pretty young for how highly recommended he is. There lies double meaning with almost everything he says. "You're case is... interesting." This phrase encompasses about a bagillion meanings. "We have no idea whats wrong," "you defy reason," "we haven't been going about this the right way," "I could write something about you." I'm not surprised... it wouldn't be the first time since this all started that a doctor found me "interesting"... or asked to use me in a lecture... or decided to try something new out on me.

The next double meaning phrase. "We don't every want to do radiation on you again." Music to a bitter angry cancer patient's ears. "We don't think its worth the risk to keep doing something that hasn't worked." Then comes logic and reason rushing down like a thousand raging waves. They haven't even taken my blood and he's already telling me that he doesn't believe the last round of 222 milicuries of radiation has had any effect. He's telling me about how he has a plan, but he's also telling me that I still have cancer. No he keeps reciting stupid key phrases like, you have recurrence but it seems more like this is persistent. I don't even know if he realized right there that he just told me that I've never once in the past 4 years actually beat having cancer. Its one thing for it to keep coming back... but to have never won, not even one battle, when you thought you had... well now, that's devastating. No matter how you gift wrap it-- never do radiation again-- HA... if only such a phrase could really carry with it the sort of optimism it implies.

He said something about having a plan... yeah, i had a plan once too. It involved Americorp, law school, the State Department... living a life in worlds most people would only dream about but I would dare to go. But my dreams get disrupted every morning at 5am when i need to take my little dose of reality. I stuck with law school... more so out of necessity than anything else. Nothing like knowing if you leave school for a break... or even a good old medical leave, you lose your health insurance. So you struggle through it, even when you aren't quite right, when your head and your heart just aren't quite with it.... and you chug on trying to find ways to rework your plan... you accommodate, you bend... you learn to adapt, or just to give up what you want.

And so when you find yourself 4 years later, sitting in the doctors office for 2 hours, hoping that this will be quick and mildly painless. You'll go in, he'll feel your neck, draw blood, and that will be the first step in finally, finally, getting back to having your own life not ruled by a disease you cant see or feel... and then he steps in and with his double meaning phrases pulls you back down to the reality that you've dealt with for far too long.