The solitary work of self care.

I’ve taken a break (mostly) from reading research about ovarian cancer. Instead, I’ve been exploring the difficult feelings–terror, grief, vulnerability, shame–that have come to attend my illness. The second and third chemotherapy treatments are completed. Each one has brought more and more healing. The symptoms from the tumors are almost undetectable. Without the distraction of physical symptoms I am fully reckoning with the emotional fallout of what has happened over the last three months.

My suffering is of my own making. I have felt resentment and a squirming vulnerability in my stomach about keeping a daily log of caloric intake, my digestive output, medication taken, symptoms, energy level, activities, and sleep. At my first chemotherapy treatment, the nurse told me to start keeping track of this information in order to be able to take care of myself. Writing a note about each meal, each night’s sleep, each cramp and bowel movement seemed like a tether to my illness. “Sick people, fragile people, weak people have to occupy themselves with such things,” was the belief I’d carried all my life. During the first month and a half of my treatment, I was sick, fragile, and weak. I felt it all, and the notebook documented the proof. In addition to the gratitude I felt for having the resources and support I had and continue to receive, I felt lonely and pissed off and sad. The feelings would break to the surface when I was engaged in the intimate and solitary work of self care–witnessing, managing, documenting the most basic functions of a living body.

Suffering and isolation are emotional soulmates. When I make the mistake of comparing my situation to others, I feel a chasm open up around me and I feel angry. Not because I want others to be in my situation or because I think I have been unfairly “placed” in this situation. It is because having cancer, being scared, feeling so vulnerable and absorbed by the diagnosis and the treatment, facing the possibility of dying from it leaves me cut off from the experiences and connections I used to seek out and welcome. In those moments I don’t have the energy or even the inclination to find the connection again. On those days, my daily log shows, I tend to have more symptoms, less energy, and I go to bed at 6pm or even 5pm or even 4:30. The feelings (pain, sadness, fatigue), the thoughts (I am alone), and beliefs (this is how a sick person lives) all affect each other. Fortunately, sleep always helps, hence the early bedtime. Writing down all the feelings and thoughts helps, because then I can see where I’ve lost my way, that I’ve stepped off the path into an impenetrable tangle of undergrowth by comparing my life now to other lives, including the life I had just a few months ago.

As my symptoms have improved, I have come to love my little notebook with my penciled in dates, times, and details. It’s a chronicle of how my precious body is faring. The practice of caring for myself, the work only I can do, is transforming me. I no longer relate to my body as an object that has served me well in the past, and has now fallen ill. I don’t view my body in the mirror as a collection of flaws, as has been my habit since adolescence. Instead I see a human being, animated with feelings, consciousness, memories, and hope. I see all of me, a whole life, with a long past and a rich present. And on the days when I am flagging, I keep taking my notes without any resentment or fear. I go to bed early so that I can rest. I remind myself to be patient, to use distraction (binge-watching British tv series, surfing the internet for videos of elephants in the wild) to get through the most difficult times and to be grateful for all the care and support I have. I’m beginning to be grateful for the difficult lessons I’m learning about vulnerability and weakness. All of these practices remind me that I still have a chance, and I can keep finding my way.