I’ve moved on in terms of living with cancer, to the point where I introduce the subject as casual dinner table conversation with the family. My coping strategies have evolved drastically over the last 2½ years.
A couple of years ago I couldn’t read an article with the word cancer in the headline. Those six letters startled me if I saw them written down. When I heard somebody died of cancer, I took it personally. If my mother sent me a link to a radio conversation where people were discussing the disease, I’d call her and explain that I didn’t want to hear it, thank you very much. Now, it’s me that asks her whether she happened to hear that illuminating discussion about cancer on the wireless. We move. We change.
So yes, I’ve moved on. Maybe I’ve matured. The difficulty arises when you make assumptions about other people’s coping strategies. For example, my daughters are not ready and may never be ready to talk about cancer over a midweek pasta bake. I found that out recently and I am happy to have this fresh understanding, but I was kicking myself for not knowing it already. I am their mother. I should have known. At least I know now.
I found this out while I was casually explaining a new condition I have called osteonecrosis of the jaw, a rare side-effect of one of the anti-cancer drugs I used to take. I don’t take it any more. A medical professional told me osteonecrosis of the jaw is “more dangerous than the cancer” if left unchecked, which gave me a bit of a jolt. Necrosis sounds like somewhere you’d go on holiday in Greece. What it actually means, and I looked up the definition of the word, not the actual condition – in keeping with my key coping strategy of not googling medical information – is “the premature, uncontrolled death of cells and living tissue”. It’s “a pathological process… types include gangrene”.
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I can search for words online, I’ve decided. Words have clear definitions and are not attached to doomsday scenarios. I found a new one while searching for necrosis. There is a dead bit of bone in my jaw, and my oral surgeon (I’ve moved up in the world from dentist) will monitor and then eventually remove it when he decides the bone fragment is ready to come out. This process is called debridement, the medical removal of necrotic material.
The feminist in me was offended by this new word. Offloading dead tissue being equated with the removal of a bride. I couldn’t even work up a good rant about it though because another word search revealed that the bride part actually stands for bridle, a sort of “unharnessing” of the wound’s healing potential. The dead part of my jaw, hopefully a tiny part, will release at some unknown point in the near future, and then healing will happen in this unbridling.
I don’t write any of this down in an effort to elicit sympathy. I don’t feel sorry for myself. I am not in any pain. And as somebody, a person who lives with chronic pain, said to me recently, it’s easier to stay positive when you are free from physical discomfort. We live in human bodies, and part of the deal is that things will change in that body. The cheery news is that we are all deteriorating in some way as we move towards the ultimate, permanent state of necrosis. Accepting this is not depressing, it’s liberating. But, that might be just me.
In my family, it’s definitely just me. My daughters only want essential information, not existential chats about the inevitability of death and interesting, if gruesome, word definitions. “The need-to-know stuff, Mum, that’s all we want,” one said. “Do I actually need to know about necrosis?” No, I suppose she doesn’t.
I was thinking about all of this when I heard the news that Auschwitz survivor and psychologist Edith Eger had died. I learnt so much from her book The Choice, and I was fortunate to be counselled by her when we met eight years ago. That deep conversation helped prepare me for what I am living through now. Eger spent her life helping people understand that we have a choice, even in the worst situations. “We can pay attention to what we’ve lost or pay attention to what we still have,” was one of her enduring truths.
[ Róisín Ingle: We all have a death day lurking unseen. When’s mine? When’s yours?Opens in new window ]
“You’re addicted to the truth,” a friend said to me recently. I think she might be right. The emotional truth at least. I don’t need all the facts. But I need to feel all the feelings, so that’s probably where I’m coming from when I casually chat about this stuff around the dinner table. But passing the black pepper while talking to my children about the latest twist in my cancer tale is not appropriate. I won’t make that mistake again. I’m fortunate to have plenty of people to talk to about all of this whenever the mood takes me.
And I can always write it down, unbridle myself so to speak, here on this page. What a privilege.
