The Very Sad Thing About Cancer

  It is about 2:20 AM on Saturday before Easter. I tried sleeping, but cannot. I have a lot of discomfort, cancer and treatment-related discomfort. I also realized that I no longer have a fingerprint on the finger I use to sign into my phone and many accounts. I was very close to getting locked out of my own phone just to get onto this site. Folfox, the chemo I am receiving, can damage the skin on a person's hands and feet. Mine was peeling badly a week ago. Now it seems that, though healed, the ridges are so shallow that they do not read anymore. Hopefully they will return. Otherwise I have unintentionally achieved what criminals through the years have gone through great lengths to accomplish. Oy.

Well, on to the idea that is the reason for this post: a man I knew only from Facebook died a few days ago. Like me, he was 54. Like me, he had cholangiocarcinoma. Like me, he was receiving chemo through a port. He commented that it looked like we had the same "set up" when I posted a picture of my port while having the pump connected to deliver the 5FU that I get for 2 straight days after the 4 hour chemo at the infusion center. He lived fairly close. He had a family. And he died.

I am extremely saddened when I hear news like this. I have connected with many liver cancer patients. Some have died. It doesn't feel good. But I don't flip out. I mourn, I pray, and I move along with my own fight. 

It dawned on me tonight that this is the approach undoubtedly taken by many of the loved ones we leave behind. It saddens me. For the exact reason, I do not know. But I may discover it on some other sleepless night. But what I realize now is that it must be a tremendous relief for those left behind when the stricken finally falls. Now there is no more worrying about the worst. It has already happened. And for many people, the last month, months, year, or years have been full of the hardest of care taking. Tired spouses have to make meals for someone who can no longer cook for themselves. They have to drive and wait at endless appointments, pick up never-ending prescriptions for this and that, all while trying to maintain their own lives. Let's not forget the middle-of-the-night crying sessions. Children have to be understanding to heartbreakingly great extents that "Mom can't do this today," or "I need you to fold the laundry," when they have already prepared their own meal, washed their own clothes, and went without some activity important to them. All because some horrible disease has taken the normal loved one away.

It must get to some point, for them, where the loss of the "normal" person, as they used to be, necessitates mourning. Yet the person still lives, but has gone from being a contributing family member to being an endless job for everyone else. I hate this. I hate becoming the job of everyone in my life. It wouldn't be so bad if I had enough to give back to them. 

The sadness of this situation, for so many many people, weighs on me. I know what my husband would say. I know what my children would say. I know what any of my friends and loved ones would say. That I am important to them no matter what shape I am in, and that I am not a burden. While I wouldn't see them as lying, I would see them as not getting it right now.