This is going to be my
new blog where I intend to write about my experience with cancer. I have found
out that I had it four years ago and after some treatment I considered myself
cured only going for check-ups. I had lived a normal life for four years and
then things changed gradually. For a while, and it was a long while, lasting
almost a year, I did not feel well. I visited my GP many times, but for some
reason, the idea of my cancer flaring up did not occur to anyone. I do not
want to go into this experience now, but it was a bad year for me and I will
most likely return to the subject at some stage as I need to understand myself
better and writing about it helps me. I have been thinking why I want or need
to write about such difficult times at all. I think that partly I want to get
it out from my subconscious, partly because it may be helpful for others
in a similar situation, partly to find a better way to deal with it all.
I am going through a chemotherapy now and I just
started the process. I have had four treatments so far and fourteen is ahead of
me. Frankly, this is not so bad as I had expected and I live a relatively
normal life. Mondays - blood test. I do not like it a bit, but I have learned
to live with it and I have found a great person to draw the blood. Loretta is
great at finding the right vain. Then there is the chemo Tuesday - I still cannot
sleep the night before, but I am almost used to the procedure. I believe that as
a part of the treatment I am injected some drugs that improve my mood and I
might be on a mild high for a couple of days, then I do not feel that bad till
Sunday when the thinking about the next two days take over. This it is how it
is for me now. My job is to take care of myself well and that means sleep well,
eat well, rest well. Most of all I need to manage with great care my emotions
and this means my thoughts. This is a difficult part and writing about it is
design to help me with the process. Will it? I will see. It seems to be an up-close-and-personal
exercise and this is not so easy for me. Some of my experience needed to be
blocked out for me to be able to go through the most difficult parts and there
were many of such times in the last three months. God, it has been only three months
since I was diagnosed and so much has happened since then. I was told by my
mother that I am a strong person but I always was doubtful about it. I
considered myself rather to be a sensitive one, but when the going got tough
the tough got going. So, it seems. And
this is how it was this time. In my mind I did not have any option, but to go
through the serious operation, in one hospital, recovery in another, then a
Shakespearian decision chemo or not chemo. And now I am at the beginning of the
more than four months of the new chemotherapy routine. And this is ME who goes
through this experience.
I always had some
interest in the stoic philosophy, but this time being is such desperate state,
I read books about stoic thinking with the very practical approach to it. I
became a practicing stoic. Through the hardest times I was reading my favourite
book by a Polish young philosopher Piotr Stankiewicz – The Art of Living
According to Stoics. Maybe I should think of translating the book into English?
I even have a possibility to contact the author. The book got me through the
very hard times. I was reading it on my iPhone when I woke up after the
operation. I was reading it each time I woke up in the middle of a night being
scared to my wits. It led me through moments difficult to live through and helped
me to go through such times with willing acceptance of the situation. It was a
desperation to get some help, I believe, but the teaching sank very deeply and convincingly
into my psyche. I have been lucky to know about the book beforehand and pull it
out in the times of need. In fact, there have been many very positive things
that happed to me in the last months as well and in fact, they happened because
of the hard times I had to live through. I met many people who amazed me with
their kindness, wisdom, support and friendship. I am a lot richer because of
the experience and, I know it sounds unbelievable, grateful for it. On
reflections, this is a great exaggeration and I will need to find better words
for it, but the experience definitely has not been all negative.
To
be continued…
