Posts Tagged ‘grief and cancer’

28
Apr
2017

5 Ways To Cope With A Recurrence

This week I had the pleasure of being a guest on The Nalie Show where Nalie and I spoke about one of the toughest topics in Cancerland… Recurrences. When I think back to when I was first diagnosed, recurrences were so far from my mind. I rarely heard anyone speak of them. Not doctors, not friends, not even co-survivors. Recurrences are taboo, merely a whisper in the cancer community. After all, we never want to consider our cancer returning after we’ve already beat it.

As someone diagnosed, a recurrence is, quite literally, the worst nightmare. It’s a subject that is hidden away in the deep and dark corners, rarely to be addressed. And because of that, those of us who suffer recurrent or metastatic cancer more often than not feel isolated in our grief, circumstance, and emotions. By shedding light on this difficult topic, my hope is that you will be empowered and full of strength, grace, and wisdom moving forward. Your feelings are valid and what you are going through is real and raw and vulnerable… and devastating. But, take it from me, you can (and will) get through this. I did, four times!

Below are five practical, applicable, and tangible ways to cope with a recurrence. I encourage you to let these penetrate your soul and transform your perspective. After having overcome three recurrences since my original diagnosis, these are tools that equipped me in the lowest points of my fight(s).

  1. Allow yourself to grieve. Feel the feelings! Often, our fears become scarier when we don’t face them. Allow yourself to face the “what ifs” and the deep, dark, nightmarish places that you try to bury. Avoiding fearful thoughts or depressing feelings will not help you nor anyone around you. This is not the time to put on a brave face. The way that you build your strength for your fight is by getting to that deep, dark place, knowing what the end of the road could be, but then stepping back, and preparing yourself for what lies ahead. Bring a picnic, don’t pack a tent! Sit in your grief and devastation for a little while, but don’t allow yourself to stay there. Don’t camp out in your grief!
  2. Breathe and make a plan. Once you’ve packed up your “grief picnic,” take a breath. Feeling the feelings is exhausting. Take a breath and get to work formulating your plan for the days and weeks ahead. Remind yourself that this isn’t the first time you’ve been through this and thus you’re already a chemo (and/or surgery, radiation, even grieving) pro! You have cancer fighting skills already on your resume. You know what you’re doing. Take this time to reflect on your previous fight against cancer. Not from a place of wondering if you did anything wrong, but rather reflecting on what you would do differently this time. Maybe you want to try different modalities of treatment or include integrative therapy such as acupuncture. Your new plan could involve juicing, reducing sugar and processed food intake, or supplements. You have the unique (though unwanted) opportunity to build a stronger plan for this time through.
  3. Remain hopeful. Numbers and statistics can get in our heads and rob us of our hope. Don’t let the numbers define your fight. Just because x number of people didn’t survive this doesn’t mean you won’t. Just because your doctor gives you an expected survival time, doesn’t mean you can’t live longer than that. I had to completely block out the statistics in order to remain hopeful. I didn’t want nor need to know what happened to everyone else. So what if your statistics aren’t encouraging? There always has to be someone who survives. You can beat the statistics. Think back in time to when cancer was fairly new. There was a first person to survive metastatic breast cancer. There was a first person to survive glioblastoma. And if there wasn’t a first, you can be the first! No one but God knows your last day on earth and until you take your last breath, don’t you dare give up hope.
  4. Set goals and look forward. Recurrences are harder to cope with than an original diagnosis because it’s a fight you thought you had already won. Recurrences can be paralyzing because you know exactly what you’re facing. Instead of being crippled in your fear, continue to set goals. Both short-term and long-term goals will keep your eyes focused ahead. Short-term goals can be scheduling a dinner date with your spouse this weekend, or vacuuming your house on Wednesday, or meal prep for your upcoming week. Long-term goals can be scheduling a vacation to celebrate your upcoming finale of treatment or planning your dream wedding (like Nalie!). Setting goals gives us eyes for the future and propels us forward. Recurrences often cause us to look back and wonder why treatment didn’t work the first time, or what we did wrong, or why me. Looking back steals your strength, but looking forward with excitement and anticipation gives us motivation to push through.
  5. Choose joy. Above anything else, choose joy! But first, you must understand the difference between joy and happiness. Happiness is an outward expression that is dependent on what is going on around you. Happiness occurs when something or someone makes you feel a certain way. Whereas joy is an inward decision that only you can make for yourself, completely independent of the circumstance around you. We live in a society that constantly tells us to be happy. However when facing a recurrence, happiness is the last thing you’re probably feeling. When you strive to be happy and come up short, you feel like a failure. But by choosing joy, no matter what your diagnosis or doctors tell you, you can overcome. Joy is not a decision that is made once, but rather one that is repeatedly made even moment by moment. By choosing joy, you are saying that you won’t let your suffering dictate the condition of your spirit.

Romans 5:2-5 (ESV)

“Through Him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”

29
Sep
2016

The Struggle is Real (Really)

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Sometimes hope is hard to find. Smiles aren’t always easy to come by. Happiness is fleeting. Sometimes even the best intentions are squashed. Days envelop in worry, fear, and regret. Nights end in tears. Thoughts can trick you, emotions can be your worst enemy. Optimism can be an elusive ghost. Sometimes dark clouds roll in, bringing thunderous roars and floods that rain on your parade. Choosing joy can be an exhausting and tumultuous battle. Sometimes the “whys” and “what ifs” outweigh understanding. Sometimes purpose eludes us.

A few weeks ago, I found myself crumpled on the floor heaving burdened sobs into the quietness of our closet. This particular Saturday started as many weekends often do, full of possibilities, adventure… and laundry. The sun was out (per usual for a Texas summer) and the birds might as well have been chirping if they weren’t so dang hot. My husband and I had regained the glorious sleep that our work weeks stole from us and we faced no agenda, no errands, and no stress. I knew it was going to be a great day. I just knew it.

Yet somehow, no matter my intentions of enjoying this beautiful Saturday, something overcame me. My tone became rude, my words short, and I could feel a temper flaring up. Like a dragon from within, I snapped at Matt. Snipping and snapping at… nothing. My meaningless and unjustifiable frustrations bellowed. I can only imagine what he thought as I continued on my whining streak. Soon, I even began wondering what the big fuss was about. Why was I upset? What’s going on? Not long thereafter, as it always does, the real reason burst forth.

“CANCER HURT ME! IT TORE MY LIFE APART. I HATE WHAT IT HAS DONE TO ME. TO MY BODY. TO MY THOUGHTS. TO MY FUTURE. TO OUR LIFE.”

Each word sharp, searing truth. I meant them, and I still do. I hate what has happened because of cancer. This isn’t the life that I wanted. This isn’t my fairytale. I’d be lying to say that joy and hope and faith and happiness is boundless and everlasting.

You often don’t see my journey to hope and joy. You read only the wisdom that I glean from the trenches of my grief. You hear the thoughts after they’ve been processed, the pain after it’s started to heal, and the loss that has already found hope. I must let you in on a little secret, though. Sometimes finding hope is downright miserable, and sometimes impossible. My life isn’t as triumphant and victorious as some may think. I struggle. Often, quietly, I wrestle with the realities of what I now face on the other side of cancer. Not yet 30 and menopausal. A body that no longer feels like my own. Barren, infertile, and childless. Broken and scarred. Deeply wounded and downright sad.

I hate pity parties, but sometimes we just need to be the “hostest with the mostest.” I try my hardest to trudge through, to find hope and hold onto it. I try to reach for gratitude for I know it has the ability to overcome anguish, but sometimes I fail. And it’s not fair for me to only show you the finish line. Understanding what it takes to get there is where community, empathy, and growth happens. I can’t let you think that where you’re at is uncommon. If you’re depressed and forlorn, you’re not alone.

The truth is, I miss my life before cancer. The wounds are so fresh that I still cry at the thought of what once was. A blissful, yet naive marriage. Grandiose dreams that really felt attainable. The world, our life — a fresh palette of the most vibrant colors ready to be whimsically painted onto a clean canvas.

I wish cancer didn’t pick me, though I’m grateful for the gifts that came with it. I wish God didn’t choose me, yet I know my calling was found in this chaos. I was supposed to live with the security and assumption that my life would be long. We were supposed to live out our dreams. After marriage, I was supposed to get pregnant. We were supposed to land those dream jobs and have the ability to buy our dream home. Our savings account would grow to thousands, not diminish to pennies. I’m mad that it didn’t go that way. I’m hurt, and angry, and disappointed.

I don’t want cancer. I never wanted cancer. I wish it was different, somehow. To be honest, there are moments when I wonder if any of this was worth fighting so hard for. The scars, the infertility, the remnants of emotional and physical pain, the grief. But would I really change it? No. I’d fight for it all again, because life is worth living, no matter how painful it may be. It’s only with eyes towards Heaven that I can grasp a minuscule understanding of my life here on earth.

You see, God often deposits resounding truths in my trenches. He allows me to feel the depths of despair with tear-stained cheeks and profound sorrow in order to see with greater understanding and empathy. Into the dark places, I feel the weight of it all. The gut-wrenching pain of tremendous loss. The burden of shattered dreams. It’s in the trenches where I find hope. Hope is not found when life is beautiful and grand, but when there is nothing left to hold onto. We must sit in the dark, quiet, muck of the trenches in order to discover the light.

Psalm 34:18 (ESV)

The Lord is near to the brokenhearted
and saves the crushed in spirit.

25
Aug
2016

Cancer: A Family Affair (Part 4)

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Written by Todd, Stephanie’s youngest brother who was 21 at the time she was diagnosed.

Occasionally after receiving a bill in the mail, I set it down on the counter, tell myself I’ll take care of it in a few hours, and forget about it for weeks, sometimes even months. When the sight of the bill on the counter triggers my thinking about paying it, I’ll sometimes push the thought further back into my mind, only for it to reappear when the next bill arrives. This bad habit of mine – described in psychological lingo as avoidance coping – was the strategy I first used to cope with Stephanie’s cancer diagnosis and treatment. For months, I refused to seriously think about her battle, because doing so led to painful thoughts.

I remember well the day in January, 2012, when Stephanie called me and told me that she had just received a cancer diagnosis. Sitting in the passenger seat of my wife’s car, I thought to myself that the diagnosis couldn’t be too bad. Sure, cancer is serious, I told my wife, Amy. And a hysterectomy is also serious business. But I was sure that 25-year-olds couldn’t die from it. And so when Amy and I flew out for my sister’s surgery a week or two later, I was saddened by the invasive surgery Stephanie had to undergo, but also comforted by the thought that it would act as a magic bullet. That thought was enough for me to look down on my sister in her hospital bed post-surgery and think that, while this was a massive bump in the road in her and her husband’s life, it wasn’t a tragedy. Life for them would return to normal in a matter of months, I remember thinking.

That all changed when Stephanie’s prognosis came back shortly after her surgery. The gravity of that prognosis hit me when I realized that I would have a better statistical chance of more than quadrupling my measly college savings at a roulette table than my sister would of living another year. So what did I do with that tragic information? Stuck my head shoulder-deep into the sand. For someone who had taken that approach for years, it wasn’t too hard to do. I was in college, nearing graduation, and working hard to prepare myself for law school. And so instead of continuing to talk to her on the phone almost everyday as I had done for the previous few years, over the next few months I only called a few times. A “hey, how is chemo going,” here and there. To me, this was the best way of dealing with the situation – pretending it didn’t exist. Coping with her prognosis was like my approach to the bills in the mail I periodically receive: if I pretend they don’t exist, they don’t, at least for a while.

That approach didn’t hold up when I first saw my sister bald in person. She was in Oklahoma for my college graduation, and seeing her was like being hit with a ton of bricks. I couldn’t evade the issue any longer, and so I directly confronted her prognosis for the first time. Before walking out on stage at my college graduation ceremony to receive my diploma, I shaved my head to honor her fight with cancer. Walking across that stage and removing my cap was, and will likely continue to be, my proudest achievement.

After a recurrence of my avoidance strategy came back when I moved to Washington, DC a few months later – I refused to read her website to avoid the fear of her dying – I finally put that strategy to rest. I realized that, were Stephanie to die, I would regret not spending as much time talking with her as I possibly could. That basic thought was profound, and it influenced not only my relationship with Stephanie but with my other family members as well. I began to talk with her, my brother, and my parents much more, coming to realize the benefit of confronting her prognosis head on.

Stephanie’s fight with, and now defeat of, cancer has been defined by her courage, bravery, and wisdom much beyond her years. I am incredibly proud that she has influenced so many. Her battle, though incredibly tough over the years, has provided me with an opportunity to learn what life is all about.

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Psalm 90:12 (ESV)

“So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.”

28
Oct
2014

Putting a Bandaid Where It Doesn’t Belong

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Life is not meant to be lived passively, but proactively. I need to remember that. We all do. Instead of allowing life to pass by and just happen to me, I need to stake my claim and walk forward refocused in my purpose.

Recently, my journey has been harder than usual. I often feel like I’m only capable of handling a certain level of difficulty. That level has been reached, and I’ve come to the end of my capabilities. Facing an impossible level, I’ve been given a choice and, unfortunately, I chose wrong.

I have been knee-deep in a murky swamp. Mud, muck, and dark waters have enveloped me. I’ve felt slithering snakes swimming past my legs, taunting me and begging for my attention. The mud between my toes has encased my feet, urging me to stay put. Instead of trudging forward, I chose to sit down. Instead of forging a way to get out of the swamp, I stopped in my tracks. I convinced myself that I was taking a break to gather my strength and to rest. But at some point, breaks end. Eventually, you must get up and keep going.

This wasn’t a break. This was me sitting down, giving up, and not wanting to deal with what I was facing. Like a child not wanting to do something, I metaphorically went limp on the ground.

These past two months have sucked me dry — physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Chemotherapy has been increasingly difficult, and good days have become few and far between. I receive the poisonous toxins once a week, therefore plenty of my days are spent on the couch, pretty useless. My nausea is often overpowering and unbearable, sitting at the base of my throat like a volcano waiting to erupt. I’m tired. There are days when I can’t imagine anything better than the comfort of our bed. Exhaustion is exhausting. Not having energy to live life on my terms is an invitation for sadness to overwhelm. Some days, the harder fight is not against cancer, but against the subsequent emotions.

Beyond the daily battle against this disease, I have faced other obstacles. Difficult hurdles and layers of grief to top off this already bumpy journey. My grandfather, whom I lovingly called, “Papa,” passed away. We were very close throughout my life, especially so in these later years as we fought the same fight alongside each other. Never would I have thought I would be fighting cancer with my Papa, but it deepened our relationship in special ways. We understood each other through each surgery, treatment, and side effect. We lifted each other up on rough days. He fought a good battle, and ultimately won the victory. Boy, do I look forward to seeing him again.

Not only did I lose my grandfather, but only a few weeks later, a close friend of mine went to be with Jesus as well. This time, it was unexpected and sudden. The type of tragedy you can never prepare for. It still doesn’t seem real. A dislodged blood clot after surgery… A mere few hours prior, I was giving her a hug, kissing her on the forehead, and wishing her well as she was to head into the operating room. We joked, laughed, and prepared for how life would look like after the procedure. I lent my words of wisdom (having gone through several surgeries before), and let her know she would be fine. The shock still comes in waves. I just can’t believe she’s gone. How I miss her so.

The combination of grief, stress, frustration, exhaustion, and sickness has weighed me down, and I simply crumbled underneath it. I sat down in the mucky swamp and, instead of resting, I merely existed. I went through the motions each day. Chemo every Wednesday. Nausea pills every six hours. Church on Sunday. Grief, like my nausea, at the surface ready to explode. Yet, I couldn’t deal with any of it.

I covered my grief and uncomfortable circumstances with bandaids. I’ve watched too much TV. I’ve eaten horribly. I’ve been snappy with my husband. I’ve introverted. And, as many of you have recognized, I stopped writing. I just couldn’t bear pouring my reflections out to the world, when my thoughts were jumbled, messy, and self-pitying. Writing is cathartic for me. It helps me process, and in turn, heals my soul. Equally as my words encourage you, they often encourage me. There are more times than I can count when I read back through an entry and know God Himself was speaking through me to me. Yet, for several weeks, I avoided it. I sat down in the swamp and went limp.

It wasn’t until I was removed from my circumstances, and was stuck in a car for thirteen hours with my husband, that I pulled the bandaids off… finally facing the wounds that were hidden underneath. We talked and I cried. Releasing what had been burdening me for weeks. And, in true character, my husband gently led me back to The Lord. I am so grateful for an encouraging husband who holds my hand, understanding and grieving with me, and guides my eyes upwards.

The problem with placing a bandaid on a wound that doesn’t need one, is it doesn’t heal. Some wounds need air for a scab to form and the healing process to take place. My wounds needed air… The refreshing air of Jesus. And instead of reaching for Him, I put a bandaid on, covering myself from healing, and went limp. The bandaids paralyzed me and put me in a passive position.

While the grief, sickness, and emotion has been painful, I have learned from it. When life gets hard and uncomfortable, our human reaction is to give up. But have you thought how your circumstances might change if you were proactive in the midst of trudging through your own swamp? We have all faced difficult seasons in our lives. Many can say that, though our circumstances may not have changed, once we became proactive, our perspectives sure did. Instead of convincing ourselves we need a break and sitting down in our muck, stand strong, be proactive, and pull the bandaid off. Allowing God to touch our wounds and heal them is a powerful act. It’s painful, but so worth it.

What swamp are you sitting in? I challenge you to pull your bandaids off, stand up, and allow God to guide you in healing.

Psalm 119:50 (ESV)

“This is my comfort in my affliction, that your promise gives me life.”