Nothing Will Be Given Back

 There are two kinds of cancers: cancer that gets better and cancer that doesn't get better. 

Obviously, the kind that gets better is the one you want to have. But the kind that gets better sometimes comes back as the kind that doesn't get better. 

This is where you run into a problem. People want you to get better. Of course they do. It's expected when someone you love is sick, that you want them to get better. When you have a cold, people expect you to get better. When you have bronchitis, they expect you to get better. 

Here is where it gets tricky. When you have a life threatening illness like covid, they expect you to get better. Even though it is possible you might die, it does no good to focus on the bad outcome. This is normal and considered a good coping mechanism.

With incurable cancer, things will not get better. The best you can hope for is to live as many years as possible in as little pain and suffering as possible. You might have days where you feel good, like you can barely tell you have cancer. But these days are not a sign that the cancer is getting better. At best, it is progressing slowly. Kind of like climate change. You can hope for a temperate winter, but the earth's temperature is steadily rising all the time.

So when you're at the point where you start to suffer from the cancer, you know it won't get better. You might have days where the suffering is less. But overall, the suffering can only continue to get worse. You have a progressive illness. Metastatic means it is all throughout your body. It is too late to cut the cancer out because you are the cancer. The goal now is to poison yourself in a way that kills the cancer faster than it kills you. Sometimes after a few months, the poison has shown to be useless in killing the cancer. However, it hasn't been useless in killing you. Your heart is weaker. You get winded unloading the dishwasher or folding your laundry. You have to ask people to repeat themselves, because even though they spoke loud enough, you couldn't understand the words they said. 

This is when you reach the point that people tell you they hope you'll get better, and it hurts. It hurts because its a little reminder each time: by the way, you won't get better. But smile anyway and agree that you will. Why must the sufferer perform false hope for the healthy and able-bodied? Don't they have enough going for them? I won't make you feel better about my terminal illness. If you need to convince yourself cancer isn't really that bad, or that it gets better, please do so with someone else.

Right now I need help dealing with the fear of losing bodily fuctions, of losing strength, of losing mobility, of losing independence. Of losing my sense of taste. Of losing my sight. Of losing hte shape of my body, of my neck as I turn into a bullfrog and age 15 years in one summer. Of my round, pregnancy-like stomach. Of my drawers of clothes that won't zipper, won't button, won't wrap all teh way around a body twice the size they were made for. And this is still early in the progression - imagine what else you're infor? What kind of horrors will become of your skin, your nails, your ability to walk, your ability to add numbers and write down your name. What else will be taken asay from me? At this point, nothing will be given back. Metastatic cancer is a one-way street.