Suffering

The first year of chemotherapy was a walk in the park.  With almost no side effects I know how lucky I was.  What I didn’t know was how bad it can be.  The current chemo program is an eye opener in this regard.  I have to take four pills – of a tyrosine kinase inhibitor, if anyone cares to know – every morning after breakfast.  I assume these pills go straight to my stomach.  There, they fuck with my stomach and then they fuck with my digestion.  My life has become brutal.

At mealtimes, I eat what’s on my plate, very slowly and without any enjoyment, not a bit more and not a bit less if I manage to get it all down.  It’s a mechanical process, a duty to my failing body more than anything.  I feel no pleasure.  I don’t eat much but it takes a long time.  Sometimes the children beat me to a clean plate.  Once inside the belly, the food lies there like rocks.  I feel like resting but it’s the wrong approach.  My digestion needs motion.

When I go for a walk after eating, the rocks start rumbling.  They bang into each other and cause pain.  They remind the gut that it also has to work.  The first ten minutes of each walk are always like balancing on a tightrope.  The reorganization of my belly and my gut’s contents is sometimes explosive and comes with sudden cramps.  I have to make sure not to be too far from a bathroom, just in case.  It’s usually false alarm, and after 15 minutes, things have usually settled.  I can continue my walk normally.

Getting into gear is the hardest part, and also the most important.  When I stay at home without doing anything, I’m slowly sliding into a state of jelly-like immobilization.  With every passing hour, I can move less (or feel like moving less) and feel less alive.  I get increasingly cold, lose all energy, function on a quarter brain only.  This is not good for work, which I mostly do from home these days.

The other day, I had a chat with the CEO and owner of the company I work for.  He wanted to know how I was doing.  I had no reason to hide anything from him and no uplifting stories.  His response was wonderful:  “You work when you feel like working and don’t when you don’t.”  The best thing about it is that he means it, but it’s not that easy.

No man is an island, in particular not one working in a company.  I work in a team.  Colleagues rely on my contributions.  I can’t just bail out on then from one moment to the next.  This needs a more thorough discussion and some planning.  I will talk to my boss this week to see what a solution might look like.  Maybe I get a sick note for 50% of my hours.  I will certainly need to tell my colleagues that my easy days are over, at least for now.

Thinking about working less doesn’t exactly lift my spirits.  Working less would be a clear sign that the cancer has the upper hand at the moment.  On the other hand, there’s no denying that this is the current situation.  It doesn’t mean it won’t get better.  This current, brutal therapy was very quick in reining in the cancer and getting the liquid out of my pleural sac.  Maybe a few more months of suffering is what it takes to get results the likes of which I have not yet seen during this journey.  I can live with a bit of suffering.