The Evil Still Within Me

I met today with my Symtpoms Management Nurse Practicioner. She’s been amazingly thoughtful and thorough even though the very first time we met I gave her a bunch of “I’m so fucking sick, you think you can help me?” attitude. But if course she did. Dramatically, so.

So I always like our monthly meetings. At this point in my fight I’ve been up and active, though in a weakened state, for over 2 months. I’m two plus days into being opiod-free, but I still take an anti-anxiety and cannabis to help with the withdrawal, and a daily anti-depressant because it helps with appetitite. But it’s conceivable I’ll be off everything but calcium and phosphorus supplements in two weeks time. I’m so curious what I will feel like when it’s just me and the cancer and the Nevolumab. I’m told I’ll be less tired which would be very helpful. I’m told I can and should exercise more which would be great.

I have a CT scan in 3 weeks and I asked her if my body feels about the same as it did 2 months ago, should I expect the tumors to be the same. (Non-progress has been concerning to me, because it’s unclear if Im getting better or worse.) She said it would be amazing if my tumors were the same size. I had to take that in because Im still thinking linearly. I still expect that there is only getting better or failing, that stasis isn’t anything I care about. And then I was pushing back tears because I had to accept how at risk, how tenuous my life is. I had to accept how lucky I would be just to be the same place I don’t want to stay in. We discussed if I went away and stopped taking the Nevolumab my cancer would most definitely come back and kill me. We discussed how my tumors were either showing covers of scar tissue or dying from the inside out but that they’re still alive. They’re still stealing nutrients from me and my body still has the hard work of both attacking the cancer and processing the dead cells.

But deep down, the cancer is like The Brain from Pinky and The Brain and it’s thinking, “How are we going to kill Ted today.” And I should know all this, but I deceive myself to thinking that my body’s health is under control and since I’m not getting worse I should be getting better.

So now I have to get better and stronger not because I’m continually beating the cancer, but in spite of it. So why am I still crying?