Setting Cancer Down For A Night
At my first appointment with my oncologist I came prepared with a lot of questions. At the top of my list was “How do I get a therapist? Can you give me one or how does that work?” I was then connected with the cancer center therapist who has helped me in innumerable ways. I would go into the appointment anxious and scared and stressed and leave feeling reassured, hopeful, and a tiny bit more sane.
For me, I had this feeling that this was the very first time anyone in the history of the world had gone through something like this. Like the thoughts and feelings I was having had never been thought of or felt before. She would say things like “Kelly, that is an incredibly common response” and it would immediately put me at ease. She also would hit me with some much needed hard truths like when I told her before I started chemo that I was scared I would feel sick and nauseous and she went “Ok, well you are going to feel sick and you will definitely feel nauseous,” and she was right! She didn’t try to sugar coat it or give me some weird false hope that chemotherapy, an extremely harsh drug that is designed to go into your body and kill cancer, somehow wouldn’t make me feel like shit.
So after a few sessions of me going into each call with a laundry list of grievances about cancer and telling her how overwhelming it all was and how I felt disconnected from people around me she said something that threw me off. She said “What if you just set cancer down for a night?” It felt… revolutionary. Set… it… down? Set it down and let the stress of having cancer leave my body for a bit? I can do that? It was so freeing. It made me feel like I was a person again and recalibrated my mind. Cancer is all consuming. It takes up all your time, you have to literally stop the life you have and redo it so that treating your cancer is the main priority. At that time, cancer was the one thing I thought about from the moment I woke up to the moment I fell asleep so the thought of putting it down, actively making a decision to let it go for a bit, was exhilarating. So, that’s what I did. My boyfriend and I had dinner, got settled on our couch, and watched a funny movie. We did it with intention, I told him what my therapist said so he was in on the plan. I allowed myself to relax, to release all the tension that was built up in my body and just enjoy time with Joe.
Of course, all good things must come to an end and the next day I was off to a scan or music therapy or some other appointment, but for that night I gave myself a break. There is a reason we feel stress, it can be very motivating and help us in a lot of ways. Stress is what pushed me to schedule my appointments, show up, call my insurance, call the fertility clinic and start the process of freezing my eggs. But too much stress is obviously hard on the body and can cause a whole host of problems. Taking time to step back, recognize it, and do something about it can make all the difference.