Rick 2.0*

So it’s been about 17 months since I had surgery and became cancer-free. I’m still trying to understand what I went through, how I have changed, and who I am now. That all sounds awfully new-agey and self-indulgent, doesn’t it? I think it means that since I’m not working I have lots of time to think about cancer.

Most of the time I feel pretty lethargic, as though I just got out of bed. Except when I have just gotten out of bed, then I feel profoundly lethargic, like I just came out of hibernation. There are a couple of ways I address this: running or biking, which make me more alert but also tired; and caffeine, which makes me feel less lethargic but very edgy. In other words, when I consume caffeine I still struggle to focus on anything, but I struggle at a much higher rate of speed.

The downside of exercise and caffeine is that I feel worse later; I don’t seem to recover very well by sleeping. So, the next day I feel more lethargic, and I exercise more and drink more caffeine, and so on. Detect a problem here? About every 4^th day I just lie on the couch and play word games obsessively, and start the cycle over again the next day.

While I had cancer, I got older (so did you). But I’m in my 7^th decade now, so I’m sure I would be feeling the effects of age regardless of my health issues; everyone my age seems to have health issues. So, I don’t really know which problems I have as a result of cancer, and which are just from getting older.

Clearly my body chemistry is different now that I’m missing an organ or two, and it impacts how I feel. And I would probably feel better if I knew how to adjust it with meds and supplements. But I don’t think the doctors know what I should be doing, and nothing I have tried has been that effective. I have a friend who has a practice helping people recover from and avoid cancer through nutrition and supplements, and I will eventually get around to seeing if she can help me.

Here are some of the other ways I feel physically different than I used to:

• My stomach makes incredible digestive noises. It sounds like a garbage disposal full of chicken bones. It’s a little uncomfortable, but mostly just weird.

•  I can’t drink much alcohol. One is great, two is dicey, three is big trouble: hangover symptoms at midnight, racing pulse and hyperactive thoughts. This is unfortunate, beer and wine taste better than ever.

•  I sleep lightly and have wild dreams. I wish I could remember them, they are awesome. But as I said before, I don’t wake up feeling very refreshed, just groggy.

• I still have some numbness in my fingers, and a fair amount in my feet. They don’t hurt, but they get cold easily. Most of the time I don’t notice it.

• My nose runs. Sometimes when I am just sitting around doing nothing.

• I’m lightheaded, and I am clumsy (clumsier I guess would be more accurate). I’ve had a couple of ugly falls, usually by tripping over something; I don’t just randomly fall (yet). But in the past I would have just stepped over these things. (The worst one was when I was standing on a chair reaching something on the top shelf of the china cabinet. The chair shifted a little, and I fell into the glass panel of the door, shattering it into hundreds of tiny shards. Later that day I saw a couple of posts from the neighbors wondering about an explosion in the area.)

• I’m more emotional. I get upset easily. I don’t like watching dramas on TV or the movies, I can’t sleep afterwards and I retain the images for days. I lose my temper quicker. I cry at puppy videos and pictures of kids.

•  I seem to have the last song I have heard playing all the time in my head. If I hear an interesting phrase, it seems to play over and over in a loop until the next song or phrase.

Despite this stuff, I still feel good enough to be happy most of the time. I’m at my best when I’m exercising; I love golf more than ever. When I’m playing golf I never think about cancer. Cycling is great, too, though I’m even more not-fast than I used to be. And I’ve rediscovered running, if you can call a 12-minute pace running. But for many years my stomach hurt when I ran, and now it doesn’t since there’s not a big honking tumor in there. I can run 3-4 miles, as long as I have a whole afternoon to do it and two days to recover. It’s cool to enjoy running again.

Another great joy is food. I’m not content any more to just eat to not be hungry. I look forward to every meal, I go to the store and buy good stuff, and I appreciate every bite. I used to think foodies were silly snobs, but now I know they are most enlightened creatures. The year that food tasted like licking a flagpole was very discouraging, and I will never take the joys of eating for granted again. It’s a wonder I haven’t gained 50 lbs. since last January.

The physical changes are significant, but the mental and emotional effects of going through cancer are more impactful and puzzling. I view everything now through a lens of having had cancer, as though this act of my life is being filmed through a filter. I have very clear memories of the events and the images of cancer, but the way I felt through it all has been converted to words; remembering being scared or overwhelmed or depressed is nothing like being scared and overwhelmed and depressed. The Year of Having Cancer has become like it happened to someone else, or I watched it on TV, or maybe I didn’t have “real” cancer, just kind of a JV version. It seems like I should try to hold onto those feelings, that they are too important to let go, but they are gone. I get teary when I read my blog account of events, and can’t believe it was me.

Another strange dynamic is not being the center of attention any more. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy the attention I got while I was sick, the texts, emails, visits, cards, and words of sympathy. It seems really perverse to say that I miss it considering the price that it required, and it makes me creepy vain to have those thoughts. I feel like my friends are thinking, “OK, you’re not going to die soon, so we don’t really have to be in touch all the time”; I know this is unfair, I would be the same way. And often I feel compelled to tell new people I meet about my cancer, which I don’t really understand and don’t like; does it comes from wanting to inspire people, or just get more attention? I’m sure some of my golfing partners aren’t convinced that I just shanked my 7-iron into the lake because I’m a cancer victim.

The biggest challenge I am facing is what to do with the rest of my life. I don’t want a regular full-time job; I have neither the energy nor the patience to deal with that. But I don’t have a clear sense of what I want to do on a part-time or volunteer basis. And most significantly, I have not been able to get unstuck and start looking into it. I’m intimidated by the range of possibilities and the ways the world has changed; I’m feeling insecure about my age and my abilities; and I don’t know if I can handle being rejected. So, it’s a lot easier to say, well, I don’t feel that great today (which I don’t), so I’ll think about it tomorrow. It’s especially easy to do that now that it’s golf season.

I’ve been considering just retiring and doing recreational stuff full time. But the reality is that doing nothing makes me feel bad about myself. There’s a powerful voice in my head that says I am in the prime of my life, and that I ought to be doing something worthwhile. I find that I’m in agreement with that voice (as I probably should be since it’s mine).

I think it’s also important that I get out of the house and be around people and stop dwelling on being a cancer victim and not feeling perfect. I enjoy being around people, most people, as long as they are not knuckleheads. I miss the kids I used to teach (though I don’t miss teaching them. Except the few that seemed to enjoy learning; this is why I don’t really want to go back to teaching, most of them have very little interest in learning any math – and why would they?) But I’m sure it would be good for me to be around more people than just the septuagenarian Koreans at the golf courses and the check-out clerks at Harris-Teeter.

All of the above, I wrote two weeks ago. Since then a couple of things have happened: first, I stopped taking two of my meds. I stopped anti-depressants because they were making me depressed, and I stopped blood pressure meds because I wanted to. As a result, I feel more alert and happier, though I’m sometimes a little lightheaded (OK, dizzy). And I sleep better. So, it’s a trade-off, but I think I like this state better.

Second, my dad passed away after a long illness. I really haven’t felt very sad yet, it was expected for a long time, and it’s a relief to me that he is no longer suffering. Also, I think I have a different attitude toward death since my illness; I’m sure I’m still as terrified about dying as anyone else, but now I just don’t think about it. And I feel defiant, like “Screw you, death! I like being here too much to waste my time with you.” But I am beginning to be visited by memories of my dad at random unexpected moments, and I find myself smiling or gasping or tearing up. I guess that’s going to happen for the rest of my life, I will miss him a great deal.

So I feel ready to find a new calling for the new Rick. I’ve come to think that it is important for people, that is, me, to be doing something that they feel is worthwhile, and I have run out of excuses. Well, I guess I will always have an excuse, but I’m tired of listening to me use it.

I wasn’t sure how to finish this piece, but now I am. Yesterday I ran in a “Purple Stride” 5K race to raise money to fight pancreatic cancer. There were about 3000 people estimated to be at the event. At one point they asked the survivors of PC to come up on stage, and 12 of us walked up. That’s right, 12. That speaks louder than anything I could ever put into words.

God bless us all!

*Thanks, Frank Hightower, for the title!