Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Well, I'm surprised

I was diagnosed with follicular variant papillary carcinoma on 25 September. So, here I sit, a week after my second surgery.

My recovery isn’t going as well this time. I decided not to take any pain medication this time, so that has affected my recovery, both for the good and for the ill. I think I’m allergic to the adhesive in the Steri-Strips the surgeon used to close the wound; I had a rash on my neck extending up to my ears that is only now fading (a day after the last few Steri-Strips fell off). The incision itches like mad. Ah well, I’ll have it looked at today at my follow up.

We’re pretty sure we got this thing before it began spreading, so for that, I’m glad. And thyroid cancer is usually curable, so that’s good, too. Yet I feel . . . like screaming or having a temper tantrum or crying hysterically or something. But then, I don’t feel like doing those things. It seems overly dramatic and irrational for something that is, really, all things considered, no big deal . . . ya know, big deal wise. Like, it’s a “big deal” because it’s cancer and must be taken seriously and treated, but it’s also “no big deal” because the treatment is nothing compared to, say, breast cancer or lung cancer. No chemo, just radio-iodine therapy, which is, again, “no big deal.”

Yet I have lost an organ, an essential organ. One can only live for a few months without a thyroid—or, more precisely, the hormones one’s thyroid produces. And doctors treat this as “no big deal” because, well, “you can take a little pill,” and Poof!, “everything is all better!” But I don’t believe it.

Things are different. Things MAY BE better than they are now, at some point. But things will never be the same. My body will never be the same. My body will never be the old, comfortable friend I’ve had these 37 years. Of course, that’s life, right? Everything changes, all the time. It doesn’t have to be wrong or bad, just different. I understand that. But even good change is stressful, as the mental health people tell us, and I need a little time to mourn the past. It was change I didn’t ask for and didn’t expect. It came out of nowhere.

I’m in my last year of graduate school, trying to graduate with a Ph.D. and find a job. I’m beginning the second year of my marriage. The last thing I should be worried about is surgery and cancer and medical bills and treatment and pre-existing conditions and whether I’ll ever be able to get or afford health insurance again. But, that’s not how it works, is it? It’s irrational and just plain wrong to expect that things would be different for me because I’m me. But it’s human nature to expect that the rules don’t really apply to you, deep down in your heart. In our heads we always know that the rules apply equally to everyone, young or old, rich or poor, but we always know in our hearts that the rules really don’t apply to us, because we’re different, we’re special, that special little snowflake they always tell you about in Sunday School or wherever.

I think the first time you face something like a serious, personal illness, is when you finally grow up; it’s when you finally figure out that you ARE human, after all, with all the benefits and responsibilities thereof. You really aren’t immune to death, the universe isn’t going to re-write the laws of physics for you. There’s no screenwriter in the sky, poised to write that great escape for you, ready to provide the Deus Ex Machina that will make it all the way it was before--only you will have learned your “lesson,” whatever that was. So, you get to be wiser without actually having any consequences at all.

At least, that’s what I think has happened to me. And it hurts.

When I was 9, my dad killed himself. My mom found him. So, reacting the only way she could, I suppose, she kind of collapsed in on herself. She stopped really paying attention or caring to what happened outside of her. She began dating a junkie/drug dealer. She began drinking. Heavily. I stopped going to school at 11, just stopped. I “played hooky,” if by that you mean stayed at home and slept. We lived in the same house but didn’t really live together. We hardly noticed each other. Life was miserable. So, I prayed, with all the fervency of a childish heart, to allow me to go back in time and warn myself. It made sense at the time. I really believed it could be done. Things like that happened all the time in the Bible. They had told me in church that God could do anything. Of course, nothing happened. But worse than that, I didn’t even get a, “Well sorry, Kid, can’t do it, and here’s why . . .”

And if I can date my Aha! moment at all, I guess that would be it. There is no God. Or if there is, it doesn’t matter. And saying that God works in mysterious ways, has a Grand Plan that I just can’t see or understand, well that’s unsatisfying at the very best. If there is a Plan and I’m part of it, then I should get some bloody info. If not, then I’m playing a game I didn’t sign up for—and that’s no different than being at the whim of an indifferent universe. Why bother wasting valuable mental energy on talking to, questioning, worshiping, praising, or even thinking about an indifferent entity, no matter what stripe of metaphor: Universe or God?

So, being the (almost) lifelong atheist I am and firm disbeliever in the "power of prayer," you’d think I wouldn’t be surprised when it turns out I’m human, after all, and that cancer can happen to me too. Even if I’m only 37. Even if I’m the Fiber Queen of the Southeast. Even if I eat 5-9 servings of fruits and vegetables per day. Even if I’m a lifelong non-smoker. Even if I’m a runner. Even if.

Got to admit it, though, I’m surprised. I’m fucking surprised, okay?