As I type away on my laptop, I am simultaneously receiving my fourth hormone therapy infusion. From the outside, it appears the same way that chemo does. I was ushered to a reclining chair, my finger was pricked for bloodwork, and tubes behind a needle were plugged into my port-a-cath. However, unlike chemo, I only receive two bags of liquid drugs instead of the four during a regular chemo regimen. The process takes about two hours, and I will not return for another three weeks. I have thirteen total rounds of this.
And today, the day before my thirty-first birthday, was my second time going back to back from radiation to hormone therapy. In cancer, the hamster wheel truly never stops. One thing leads to another, and you don’t understand the why or the how, but you clearly understand the do.
I DO feel like shit.
I DO not want to do this anymore.
However, I DO want to live.
The last seven weeks have eroded me in ways I did not know were possible. Monotonously, I live out the same exact day every single day of the week. The kids appreciate the schedule but are starting to catch on to this groundhog day life. When I’m too tired to function, it’s a relief to know I can trust autopilot to parent.
On the other side, my brain is a genie in a bottle in a bottle called radiation. Jammed by force into a time capsule that all centers around me sprawled out on a table at 1:15 p.m. No wishes, just a grumpy aging Mom who will tell you to wear sunscreen, drink more water, and not take birth control.
I dream of spontaneity and unstructured days. I dream of the control to take the kids somewhere on a whim, whether that’s a lazy fortress in the house or an unexplored trail in the Delaware Water Gap. The day will come next week, but it’s hard to grasp reality after seven weeks of dreaming.
The hampster wheel goes nowhere.
One thing that you don’t realize when you’re initially diagnosed with cancer is that you will spend the rest of your life immediately believing every ache and pain is cancer. Even when actively undergoing cancer treatment! In AA, a phrase goes, “every rock bottom has a trap door,” which means it can always be worse.
But in cancer, it holds an entirely different meaning. Cancer treatment means “your cancer has opened up a pit for another problem which we will now investigate while attending to your regularly scheduled infusion.”
I didn’t notice the pain until about two weeks into my radiation. Honestly, I didn’t understand why everyone said radiation was so hard. Everyone is lovely, and the nurses keep the room nice and warm so you can drift to sleep as the machine panels buzz around your body. You can’t feel the laser, and it’s over and done within five minutes. Except for having to hold your body completely still for the entire treatment, it could be worse.
It started as a dull ache in my pelvic area one random afternoon. Slowly, into the evening, it grew into what I can only describe as an awful menstrual cramp. I wanted to call it that badly, but chemo put me into early menopause, and I haven’t bled since September. Hmmm. I called my oncologist, and she suggested that my period may be coming back. Alright! So I held onto that for another week.
As the pain intensified, so did my manic obsession with a diagnosis. I had fully convinced myself that I had somehow developed ovarian cancer (even though I had just completed the same chemo regimen I would’ve been offered in that scenario). Dr. Google was painting a bleak picture, and I needed a real doctor to persuade me in the opposite direction.
The hamster wheel gathered speed as the pain evolved into a daily 8 out of 10.
So I followed up with my OBGYN, who ordered a pelvic and transvaginal ultrasound and a stool sample. So there I was, scooping my shit into little vials and Russian-doll packing them into ziplock bags. I batted my eyelashes and lowered my embarrassed face as I told the LabCorp tech I was bringing in, “the goods.”
I had a week to wait for my ultrasound appointment and a few days to confirm the results.
There is a particular devilry in waiting for a diagnosis that exists entirely on its own.
The magic of not knowing for the bliss of ignorance, but also the curse when you finally discover your ailment.
How the heart hovers over your inbox when you get a new email because this could be test results from LabCorp.
Spiraling into a panic attack each time you feel pain because this could be the one that takes you out. Blood leaves your head, and everything gets all white, and you pant and steady yourself because, goddammit, I’m not going to the ER today.
It’s the weekend, the only two days I’m not already at a doctor in this radiation season.
If I were dying, for real, it would hurt more, no? If I can handle the pain without showing it on my face, I can stay in my sweatpants with Gable and the kids.
Each moment brings you closer to the time bomb of the next appointment. You convince yourself, “I just have to make it to the appointment, and then the doctor will finally deliver a diagnosis.”
And then you get there, and they say, “we’re not sure what this is; you are going to have to follow up with imaging or a specialist.”
And you follow up with imaging, and they say, “our next available appointment is in one week.” And you will yourself into that week, believing you will know after just one more week.
But then you get to imaging or a specialist, and they say, “we’re going to have to biopsy this; it’ll be another week.”
And you’ve been crying to sleep every night for a month because what if it’s terrible?
This alien thing is under your skin, tormenting you with pinches, pains, and twinges. You hold your hand to the site of location and wish that it would turn into a mobile ultrasound doctor instead of fucking Google symptoms with a terminal diagnosis.
It’s like being drafted for a war, and you don’t know whom you’re fighting.
A soldier is being corralled into a line of unfortunate people wondering where they’ll be stationed. Will it be somewhere local? A strenuous tenure in the safety of the familiar? Or are we going overseas?
Will I come home from this?
So far, all of my results have come back clean! However, beneath my elation and gratitude for that, I am annoyed that I still do not have a why for what is causing all of the pain. This investigator is exhausted.
I am following up with a GI specialist who wants to ensure that my insides are not too rotten for the following line of defense in the battle against cancer; tamoxifen. It’s the oral drug I will take for the next five years, and one I hope will not contribute to the never-ending game of side effects wack-a-mole.
I walk into thirty-one cautiously, looking around for a jump scare. Thirty almost took me, and thirty-one has taken two of my best friends. I review MyChart like a cartographer sketching their way through murky swamp land. Is another monster called cancer out there, or does this inlet close in after radiation? I’m ready to draw clear fields and maybe even dense forestry when my port-a-cath comes out. And stay there until it’s time to put down the pencils.
Because thirty taught me anything, it’s that we’re never too young to die.
But on a brighter note, the voice in my head does not know that.
She still sounds like she’s twenty and is overly optimistic that everything will be okay.
She tells me to smile in passing to everyone and ask how they’re doing. I credit her for the kindred spirits I’ve found in all the nurses, doctors, cashiers, gas attendants, and everyone else I meet along the way.
And in thirty-one, I hope her joyful sing-songy pitch continues reverberating through my thoughts.
Kathlyn Ramsey Moore 