Here’s What They Don’t Tell You About Cancer

© 2011 Group G Enterprises, LLC

You think you know about cancer, but you don’t.

It’s so misleading, really. You find out you have cancer, then you have to figure out a treatment plan, get through that and all the things that come with it. If you have been visiting this site, then you know for me it was several rounds of the worst kind of chemo, several surgeries, and years of taking meds to keep it from coming back. Okay, that’s all fine. Then it’s over, right? The hair comes back, you stop feeling more miserable than you could ever have imagined and every day is not a struggle.

Nope. That’s what they don’t tell you. Who’s they, you may ask? The doctors, the people you know that have had it before, the books and websites and talk shows, on and on, etc. They don’t tell you how you are forever changed, physically and mentally. They don’t tell you that you’ll have anxiety over every doctor appointment, weird feeling or illness, news reports on the latest cancer study or “this now can cause cancer” thing that you have been doing all your life.

They don’t tell you that it never really goes away. That’s the rub. I thought, okay, I’ll get through this forest which took years, and then I will be out of it and able to look back on the trees from the other side. Not so much.

Recovering after surgery. © 2010 Group G Enterprises, LLC

Here’s how it went down for me:

1) Welcome! You are now part of the crappiest club because it happens to the most wonderful people you know and love.

2) The chemo caused permanent neuropathy in my hands and feet – maybe the infusions of chemo, maybe the pills I had to take for 7 1/2 years after did. Which makes it hard for me to walk and open jars and normal stuff like that.

3) I didn’t lose weight having cancer, I gained it in spades thanks to having an estrogen-based cancer. They pumped me full of steroids to help with the nausea from chemo. They turned off my hormones so it wouldn’t feed new cancer, which shut down my metabolism. I could just look at a piece of lettuce and gain weight. And then I stopped taking the medicine, but that stuff’s broke now. Still eating lettuce and gaining weight. Hi!

4) It changes things for your love life, and what I mean is, how you feel about yourself. We’ll leave that topic for another blog.

5) Everyone wants to tell you the story of the person that they know that had it, beat it and died. Awesome, thanks! I wasn’t thinking that already. Or had it and still has it or on and on of all the freaked out crazy things that run through your mind anyway that are now amplified by 1000%.

Cancer messes not just with your body, but with your head, your peace of mind and your future. If you aren’t careful, it can send you over the edge into paranoia – oh my god, it’s back – and depression – it’s never going to get better – and sadness – I am never going to be the same.

And I could tell you about all the great things it does – all the kindness that surrounds you and amazing things people do that make it bearable – but we aren’t talking about that today. I hate cancer today. I hate what it has taken from me. I hate who it has taken from me. I hate what it has done to my life. I can hate it some days, because that makes me more determined to find a way to make it easier for someone else.

So this is the thing – honesty is key. If someone had told me at the beginning, “Look, this is going to suck like you have never felt something suck before, and it’s going to change everything in your life in some way,” then I might have been able to prepare myself for at least part of that.

But it’s still affecting me, maybe not everything in my life, but just enough to remind me of it. So, that’s what they don’t tell you about it, but I am telling you. It sucks. Large. For a long time. And now that you know, you can prepare yourself.

And if you need help, we can help you. Don’t be afraid to ask. Because if cancer teaches us anything, it really makes it okay to ask for help. Get help for the physical pain. Get help for the mental anguish. Get help for the grief that follows. You are going to need it.

At our beach, on the mend. © 2011 Group G Enterprises, LLC

And keep going. That’s the last thing they don’t tell you, and the most important. Just. Keep. Going.

Even if it sucks, get up one more day. Because it might be great.

And if you don’t try, you’ll never know.

For more personal stories, click here.

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