It’s weird. I’m not gonna lie. It’s been a kick to my understanding of who I am.
I had a ticket to see one of my favorite bands from the 90s, The Jesus Lizard, in Atlanta on Dec. 18, two days after I got the call about my potential diagnosis. I remember charging into the mosh pit (one of my favorite things to do) at that show and thinking: “wow, I, like, literally, have cancer.” I have been out carousing in my neighborhood with friends; I had a New Year’s Eve party; and, generally, I am trying to continue to do the things I would normally do and enjoy.
Thankfully, I don’t feel sick; my the back of my throat and the swollen mass in my neck are sore, but they have not really affected me beyond a mild discomfort. And yet, I know that I am walking around with a growing, mutating thing in my body that, if left unchecked, would probably kill me. That’s an unsettling realization, especially when I am not in any pain.
Also, without having much knowledge of what treatment would entail, I submitted paperwork at the end of December for a full medical leave from my university faculty job. That was a hard call to make, and it feels especially strange given that, for several weeks before treatment, I’ve just been home and available for the preliminary scans and conversations that I need to have with the oncology team. It’s the first academic semester that I have participated in since I started teaching in the fall of 1999.
As you might guess, the mental health impacts of the last month have been larger than I expected and inconsistent. We all think we know what we would do with a magic “month off” from work that we didn’t expect; for me at least, I have not approached it with that much vigor. I’ve had to fight being sedentary because, some days, that’s all I want to be. I wasn’t feeling ambitious and active for a couple of months before my diagnosis (something that the oncology team has said might have been connected to the growth of the cancer, but might not have been), so that feeling of listlessness has just grown. On the more challenging days, it has felt like a lot of things are out of my control and that I just want to watch movies in bed.
But I have also tried to interrupt that pattern. I’ve started taking long walks to keep myself moving (including a seven mile walk with my partner a couple of days ago right as snow was starting to fall in Atlanta); I’ve kept up with friends; I’ve started some home projects; and, I’ve been looking forward to telling this story in a way that feels appropriate, useful, and, maybe comical.
So, being diagnosed with cancer feels weird. Waiting for treatment to start (when I don’t have much discomfort but I’m not working) is existentially confusing. Being uncertain about how uncomfortable and threatening treatment will feel creates a kind of low-frequency dread.
However, I have thought a lot about how to communicate news of my diagnosis to other people in my life. Explaining and contextualizing that information to the people I care deeply about felt like 1) something I have skill with and 2) something I could be in control of. I’ll be writing about those decisions have looked like next.
