Jay Lake: Writer

[cancer] The frame of mind begins to narrow

As I know from experience, my focus tends to narrow when I close in on a major milestone in my cancer journey. This illness induces all sorts of pathologies in me which I never enjoy in the course of my normal life — anxiety, panic attacks, crying, etc. It also invokes an old, old specter of depression, which I struggled with to severe clinical extremes in my teen years and young adulthood.

Walking this morning, I found myself turning over my surgery fears. I don’t actually have much of a negative reaction to the idea of the surgical procedures. In fact, they tend to fascinate me. But anesthesia… I have both a reasonable and an unreasoning fear of anesthesia. My true terror in surgery is that I simply will never wake up.

And boy did that terror dog me this morning.

Yesterday was a perfectly fine day. Day Jobbery, lunch with , got my hair done in the afternoon while Mark Ferrari kibitzed, then dinner with Mark, then a quiet evening at home. But the whole day I was very bundled up, like Randy in A Christmas Story. I cannot afford to come down with a respiratory infection in the next week or two, not going into lung surgery, so keeping my core temperature high has become a significant priority.

And that depressed me, for reasons it took me a while to unravel. What I finally realized was that exaggerated protection from being chilled is also part of the chemo experience, at least for the chemo I’m most likely to be on. Being ridiculously bundled up was like a pre-echo of that extended state of medical fragility into which I will be entering all too soon.

The petulant part of me keeps crying that I don’t want to do this, again, or ever. The stubborn part of me says fuck cancer, we will survive.

Still, the focus narrows.

Tags: Cancer, Personal, work

Posted: 5:57 am Tue November 10 2009 |

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• Brenda Cooper

  November 10th, 2009 at 6:01 am

  I like the Fuck Cancer approach. The group I do the Cancer walk with sometimes is called “Kick Cancer’s Butt” and it’s mostly delightfully stubborn older women who are kick-ass fundraisers.

  Reply

• phillyreds (twitter)

  November 10th, 2009 at 6:04 am

  you have my core fear! Never waking up – I fight it – more than i ever did chemo or bone marrow tests or anything else.

  I journaled my journey, I wish I had had a way with words as you do, you echo my fears in a way I could never articulate.

  Somehow you being able to do that appears to be half the battle of over mind and matter. Speaking the unspoken.

  Good luck with the prep time for surgery!

  Reply

  • Jay

    November 10th, 2009 at 6:15 am

    Thank you for that.

    Reply

• Meran

  November 10th, 2009 at 6:43 am

  I’d have a fear of doorknobs… They pick up ALL the germs… Wash your hands a lot
  I understand your fear…I’ve had a few surgeries and I’ve always had trouble coming out of that dark sleep… with nausea hitting me had when I do.. (they have to give me something to wake me up every time)
  I feel for you, but you’re strong! You succumb now and then, but you’ll get back to fight the Bastard Cancer till its gone.

  Reply

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