Someone asked me if I thought ‘coping with cancer’ was a competition. I was quite indignant with my no. I mean, what are they talking about of course it’s not a competition. A few minutes later, I asked them if they thought I was losing. Am I losing? Am I coping ‘right’? Are others better at this than me? Is there an instruction manual for coping with cancer (or metastatic breast cancer to be more to the point)*?
*If there is, I want it.
It’s been just over five months (five months and two days to be exact) that I learnt that I had metastatic breast cancer. Five months and seven days since I had a good indication that I had breast cancer. On the day of my mammogram, ultrasound and biopsy^, I returned to work around lunch time. Why? That is a good question. I think even at this early stage I knew I didn’t want to be alone with my thoughts.
^I am super fortunate that I have a brother who is an oncologist. So while after a mammogram, ultrasound and biopsy, the doctors thought it might be cancer, I obviously did not really know. My brother gave me the brutal truth that it was very very likely to be breast cancer.
At work, I was shattered; somehow trying to process the idea that I might have breast cancer. Two amazing colleagues looked at me and made the decision that we needed a work from pub day. We ate some good food, drank probably one beer too many (six for the record – not normally one too many but on a Monday afternoon, probably one or two too many), laughed (even about cancer a couple of times) and did no work. I think for some it would not have been what they wanted or needed. For me, it was exactly what I needed to get through the day and find some energy to go home and see the kids.
Four or five days after the actual diagnosis, we all went back to the same pub and drank. This time definitely too much for any occasion (and definitely something that I am trying to improve, a few drinks is great but I do need to limit this as a coping with cancer mechanism). A friend/colleague asked what I wanted to do (I think in relation to staying overseas, going home, work – a general, what do you want to do) and I said I didn’t know. She reassured me with a standard “that’s okay, you’ve got time” and I joked back, “yeah, but not too much time”. She was horrified. I laughed. I don’t think this is new. I think I have always had a tendency to joke when things are bad. Is it coping? Clearly, I’m deflecting the bad with humour? Is that coping?
It’s not a competition but I’m winning here
Apart from drinking (just slipping that one in here), humour and deflecting, how else am I coping? For several months, I have done everything possible to not be alone. Instead of spending three weeks on my own while the kids were with their father, I jumped on a plane and did a relatively extravagant holiday – I met with friends, a man and lived like I was single and 30 again*. I had the best time. I almost drowned out the cancer radio that is now consistently playing in the back of my mind. I then swung past, picked up the kids and took them on a six-day holiday. We had the most amazing time – making, I hope, some life-long memories. And I was happy. Like, had some truly great moments. Back home to my first three month scan and I’m smashing it out of the park – the big tumour in my breast has reduced by almost half and one of the bone legions shows signs the treatment is working. I’m totally winning at this, right?
*At 30, I was married. So never really did the single at 30. Single at 40 though, yes there have been ups and downs but the freedom that comes with it – I think that might need a whole other blog.
Am I though? Soon after the summer ended – kids were back at school and I was back at work – I felt quite literally engulfed by rage^. I felt that I had a very short patience (if any – gosh I feel for my colleagues at work), I struggled to find motivation at work (to be fair, that had been there since the diagnosis) and a constant feeling that I was not doing enough, not being enough – that I was settling and that I didn’t have time to do that anymore. Somehow, there was not a lot of rage at the fact that I had cancer. More at myself for not handling it properly. In my mind, I think to ‘handle it properly’, I needed to be doing those things that made me happy, not putting up with the shit stuff, making grand gestures to ensure that I am making the most of every moment. But that is not life. Not adult life (or at least, not my adult life, in any case).
^Rage is a big word. It was not I walked around seething at everything and everyone. I also didn’t go around breaking things (may have considered it once or twice). But I did feel quite deep seated anger and frustration that I could only best describe as rage.
My new theory is that I really just spent several months slightly in denial. Not denial that I had cancer but in denial that it was something that I was going to live with for the rest of my life. As I returned back to normal life*, alongside low-level energy and minor side effects of treatment, I realised this was my new normal and while there was so much to be grateful for, it also kinda sucked. But what a massive realisation, that I have incurable cancer and it was going to be with me the rest of my life. Now I just need to ‘suck it up’ and get on with life, preferably without whinging. Right?
*I have come to start hating the use of “normal”. This treatment allows you to have a normal life, you can go about life as normal. But what the fuck is normal about this? And this is not the normal life that I used to know. There has been a skew in what normal is and what it will become.
Maybe this is coping with cancer?
Growing up, one of my mum’s favourite sayings was ‘suck it up’ and there was definitely no whinging allowed in our house. I read that now as a 40-something-year-old and see some issues with both points. I think both need some better finessing (which I am trying with my kids) but there is an element of coping (or that dreaded word, resilience) that I am grateful to my mum for helping me build to help me get through the tougher moments in life.
Importantly, somewhere deep down though I am realising that it can also be finessed for me.^ That coping does not mean sucking it up and not complaining. Sometimes, coping can also mean recognising that you need help or you need a break or just simply that you are not okay, even that yep, the current situation is shit. And, just because you need two days break or need extra help one week does not mean that you are not coping better or worse than the week before. Maybe actually taking the break when you need or asking for help when you need it is actually what really coping is all about.
^It’s so much easier to see the need to finesse these mottos or way of living from my mum when I think about my kids. I want them to be able to voice their feelings, concerns, worries. At times I struggle to help them find the balance between voicing these really valid feelings and helping them not whinge (because I can’t completely change who I am and I struggling with whinging). Also helping them validate their feelings but not using them as excuses not to live life or do some of the things in life that we don’t like doing. It’s easier to do this with the kids than it is for myself.
So, yeah, maybe somewhere in there I was losing. I was trying so hard to win at coping with cancer – to be the best at coping with a life-limiting diagnosis – that I wasn’t really being true to myself and I was also pushing myself too much. So, it was really inevitable that at a certain point, I was going to crash and burn in a ball of rage.
Coping my way
But, is this what I needed? During the denial period – wow, I had some good fun (like next level good fun). When I look back, I’m honestly slightly amazed that I could have that much fun a few months after this diagnosis. The current period of anger, maybe this is also what is needed to help me realise that I need to find more balance between the non-stop go and have fun and also the more mundane normality of life, that I do – like it or not – need to continue living. I have kids, a job and responsibilities that come with that.
Maybe this is coping. And maybe it’s not for everyone but it is how I’m coping with cancer and I guess that is what matters. How I find ways to continue getting up in the morning, how I show my kids how to continue in the face of adversity but more importantly, show them the importance of stopping and asking for help when needed, how I find ways to live the mundane normality of life and, I hope, how I can intersperse that with the amazing next level good fun. I’m not sure that I have fully worked out how to do all of that, just yet. But I’m not losing at this, I’m learning, making some mistakes and doing my best to move forward.