Control, control! You must learn control!
People keep encouraging me to be honest about how I’m doing and feeling, which I really do appreciate. My natural inclination, like most people, is to say “I’m fine,” no matter what’s going on in my head.
The thing is, I’m having a hard time figuring out how I’m doing and feeling in any given moment. For the situation I’m in, and for how quickly everything has come about, I think I’m doing OK. I think I’m doing about as well as anyone could expect. But if I compare how I’m doing now to how I was doing last month? I am not doing well. I’m not sleeping much. I’m worried or sad or angry or stressed almost all the time. I cry at the drop of a hat. I still have an appetite but I don’t feel like eating anything. This is a symptom of depression I’ve never, ever experienced before. I’ve always been an emotional eater, happy to feed whatever bad feeling I was having with any number of comfort foods. But comfort foods aren’t cutting it right now.
As long as I’m being honest, this week was really hard. I wrapped things up at work and, while everyone where I work has been supportive and lovely and, just, unfailingly kind, I feel a bit cut adrift right now. I didn’t realize how much space work took up in my brain, and now that it’s not there, the bad feelings are trying to take over. I know that, come next week and the months after, I’ll be glad to have that brain space free, but it’s been an adjustment.
I also had what felt like a bajillion of medical appointments and tests this week, to prepare for surgery. Nothing completely out of the ordinary from normal doctor-office-mishaps happened, but I had such a frustrating experience on Friday with a variety of tests I had to get. As I drove home from them, sitting in Friday afternoon Seattle traffic, I fumed and planned the angry-Karen emails I was going to compose when I got home. I was going to tell them each and every way I was frustrated and inconvenienced and how this made me feel, and then they’d be sorry!
Then I took a deep breath. Thought about how, nothing really bad had happened, I was still OK, and everything that was supposed to get done had been. And what was I expecting my angry emails to accomplish? Other than convincing my medical team that I’d finally gone from kind of unhinged to fully unhinged in the span of a week, I couldn’t think of anything.
This overwhelming sense of calm came over me, even as I navigated I-5 during rush hour. It was like I could feel the worry and the need to control every single little thing drain right out of me, and I instantly felt better. I realized what I was really worried about was all the uncertainty that still surrounds everything, and sending angry emails wasn’t going to help. In that moment, I decided to let go of all the worries swirling around my head, trust that my care team has this, and stop trying to plan for every scenario. This goes against everything about me, but I immediately felt calmer, and it hasn’t worn off yet. I’m sure I’ll still have my moments but I’m going to try hard to stay in this space.
This will likely shock no one reading this, but I’ve always been a bit of a control freak. In fact, from almost the moment I was diagnosed with cancer, I started planning and organizing and trying to convince myself that I was going to be THE BEST CANCER PATIENT THEY’D EVER SEEN, DAMMIT. I told someone I was going to Hermione Granger the shit out of this cancer, but in reality, the Leslie Knope energy was stronger, because I even made a binder:
The first few days after I received my treatment plan, I shoved everything in that binder we could possibly need while I’m incapacitated. I bought a notebook so we could take copious notes at all appointments. But it turns out that energy only lasts so long. I’m glad I did it when I did it because I’m guessing that the longer this goes on, the less energy for organizing my life I’m going to have. Luckily, I’m surrounded by Leslie Knopes and I know they’ve got this.