[It's a year this week since I finished 'active' cancer treatment (though I'll be on hormonal medication for years to come). Wanting to reflect on this milestone, the following is what came forth. Warning: it contains spoilers about The Sopranos!]
Leaving my home, job and loved ones on short notice so that my husband could take up a work opportunity in Darwin, it felt like my little car in the Game of Life had hit a patch of ice. On being diagnosed with an aggressive case of breast cancer a short time later, my once reliable vehicle skidded into a ditch, flipped over and caught fire.
After the first two operations it was time to move on to chemotherapy. I arrived at hospital for my first treatment carrying a laptop, headphones and series 1 of The Sopranos. Six chemo sessions, each three weeks apart, six Sopranos series – it seemed meant to be. I developed a ritual in which I started a fresh series at each appointment, polishing off the remainder at home in time to begin the next series in The Chair three weeks later. While I was keen to experience a much-lauded tv show, as a mum from the Australian suburbs I didn’t expect that The Sopranos would have great personal resonance. I hadn’t bargained on series six.
As the final series opens, mob boss Tony Soprano lies in a hospital bed. He has been shot in the abdomen, sepsis has set in and the doctors are pessimistic about his chances of survival. After a vivid dream in which he is living a different, law-abiding man’s life, he regains consciousness. Moved by his experience, he resolves to change, declaring, “From now on, every day is a gift.”
Beset by his usual stresses, however, it soon becomes apparent that lasting change is going to be very difficult for Tony. As he remarks to his therapist in frustration: “Every day is a gift, but why does it have to be a pair of socks?”. Soon he is indulging in behaviour that breaches his warped but previously inviolable moral code. He gambles, uses drugs and acts viciously towards members of his extended family. Failing to change for the better, he changes for the worse – like a reformed alcoholic who has one drink and then decides that he might as well go on a week-long bender. There is debate about the famously ambiguous ‘cut to black’ final scene of The Sopranos, but my interpretation was that Tony had been the target of a hit, his family bearing witness to his murder. For a bandana-clad viewer, the series contained a chilling moral: he who squanders the gift of a spared life shall suffer damnation - and bring misery to those who love him.
The notion that cancer’s life-threatening nature creates impetus for sufferers to change their lives for the better was a recurring theme of the pamphlets, books and websites that crossed my path after diagnosis. Even the most measured ‘official’ materials bore this message. The National Breast and Ovarian Cancer Centre’s guidebook told me that women can find breast cancer “gives them a new perspective”, “makes them re-think what’s important” and “provides opportunities they would not have considered before their diagnosis”. According to the Breast Cancer Network of Australia, many of the changes I was likely to experience after breast cancer would be “positive...like reassessing what’s important in life.” These were just the broadly distributed publications endorsed by my medical team. Let’s not get started on the contents of an average bookshop’s ‘Health’ section, let alone the internet - or Livestrong.
With surgeries, chemotherapy and radiation treatment behind me and my long-term outlook hopeful but uncertain, I waited for an epiphany. Instead, I found myself growing increasingly confused. Cancer discourse seemed to require contradictory things of me. That I change for the better, while not letting my essential self be changed and thus somehow ‘defeated’ by cancer. That I learn to live ‘in the moment’, while clarifying and achieving my goals. I found to my distress that answers to some of the ongoing struggles of my (admittedly privileged) life remained maddeningly obscure. How could I reconcile a thirst for change and adventure with a longing for proximity to loved ones? A desire for career progression with a desire to be at home with my kids after school? A yearning for creative expression with the need to earn a living? My ambition to learn the ukulele with the reading obligations for my book club? Even with Principal Cancer blowing the whistle, my priorities jostled and shoved one another instead of falling into an orderly queue. My “new perspective” still unclear, and unable to stop sweating small stuff, I appeared to be failing Life Threatening Experiences 101. Soon bad habits started to re-emerge (some of those disorderly children had got tired of waiting and were sneaking off behind the bike sheds for a smoke). Nearly a year after finishing treatment, it seemed that I still wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to be when I grew up, and that I still liked eating ice cream and frittering away time on the internet while I thought about it. How could I maintain the sense of urgency created by fright? Would I emerge from my cancer experience transformed and thus redeemed, or would I be a wishy-washy Mrs Flitcraft?
In The Maltese Falcon Dashiell Hammett tells the story of Mr Flitcraft, a prosperous real estate agent from the suburbs of Tacoma, Washington who never makes it to his four o’clock golf game – or home to his loving wife and children – after leaving his office for lunch one day. When Sam Spade tracks him down five years later, Flitcraft tells him that on the way to lunch a large beam had fallen from high up on a building site, crashing to the sidewalk close enough for a flying splinter to leave a scar on his cheek. With an intense flash of insight into the randomness of existence, Flitcraft had decided that he must overturn his orderly life. He had left town that afternoon and boarded a boat to San Francisco. By the time Spade finds him, however, he has settled back into a moderately-sized city in Washington State, started a car dealership, married a woman very similar to his first wife and had another child. Spade concludes with affection, “He adjusted himself to beams falling, and then no more of them fell, and he adjusted himself to them not falling.”
On reading this tale in the wake of cancer treatment – Tony Soprano fresh in my mind - I initially saw Flitcraft as demonstrating a pathetic lack of imagination and resolve. Sure, unlike Tony he hadn’t killed anyone, but in failing to achieve lasting change in the face of death it seemed he had shown a similar weakness of character. The disdain in which his and Tony’s failures should be held was, I feared (looking down at my ice cream) only a matter of degree.
But now, some months later, I favour a more positive interpretation. Perhaps the tale of Flitcraft illustrates the folly of trying to deny one’s essential nature. Perhaps it shows that before the beam fell Flitcraft had been a shrewd judge of his own character, and had chosen a life that suited him well. After a period of confusion he had ultimately re-built something that most people would regard as a good life – family, diverting work, a comfortable home. Surely this can be read as a tale of success instead of failure? Isn’t there something praiseworthy in recognising one’s blessings and deciding to be content with one’s lot? Does lasting dramatic change require a significant level of dissatisfaction – a churlish state for someone with an enviably pleasant life that has (for the moment) been spared?
Despite my post-treatment confusion, I have managed some small changes. I’ve become involved in breast cancer support, and have enjoyed meeting others who’ve been grazed by falling beams. In person they don’t make me feel inadequate, and they tend to have wry senses of humour. I am also eating better. I often think of the Simpsons episode in which Homer escapes a predicted death-by-blowfish, and declares that he is going to change his life. As the end credits roll he is seen sitting happily in front of his television - eating light pork rinds.
As for sorting out my priorities, cancer-inspired clarity continues to elude me. But I’m working on it, mulling it over as I sit on the couch with my low-fat snack foods. I am trying to be patient with myself. I have come to appreciate the degree of difficulty involved in preventing a precariously-balanced beam from casting a shadow over my life, while letting the sight of my reconstructed breast provide a useful reminder of the graze on Flitcraft’s cheek. When searching for cultural touchstones I’m trying not to look to cancer literature (with its intimidating over-achievers), Tony Soprano (with his terrifying slippery slope) or Flitcraft (with his misjudged and short-lived change for change’s sake). My revised ambitions are modest. I’m aiming a little beyond Homer’s new pork rinds, and feeling an affinity with the female Simpsons. Right now, I’m a bit like Marge in the opening credits. My little car is back on the road, and while I may be a rather distracted driver I’m smiling a lot, and blowing my horn now and then just for the hell of it. A year out from cancer treatment, I reckon that isn’t too bad. I’m almost feeling ready to embrace Lisa as my next role model. I think of the way she twirls out of the classroom jamming on her sax, and decide that Principal Cancer should give me a respectable pass if I at least learn to play the ukulele.
Comments
Hey Liz
All I can say is Wooooooooooooooo. Reading your post blew my mind. You are so informed, so intelligent and so much more articulate than I will ever be.
BUT if I read between the lines I believe you are just as confused, overwhelmed, blown away and fearful as the rest of us as with what we have been through, what we have endured, how far we have come and how far we have to go. So in saying that I just seem to get the feeling that you are trying to be good, just like the rest of us as it is so important for us "to be good" but at the end of the day with all the day to day stuff that is going on it is just so bloody hard to "do it"!!!
Am I reading what you are saying, or am I miles off what you are trying to get out there??? Please help me to understand?
Thank you for putting your thoughts, your knowledge and how you are feeling out there for us as you have given us a very articulate outlook on things and I appreciate that.
I hope from all you have said that you are doing okay and trying to make a difference and are trying to learn to live a better life the best way we can........
I don't believe how we live matters because I believe that horrible mongrel of a C is inside us and something that we have no control over sets it off and then it just keeps running rampant. Once we have experienced the big C it is then that it is very important that we re-evaluate our lives and try to do everything we can to ensure the big C doesn't pop it's ugly head again but if it does then we don't blame anyone or anything we just get on with trying to eradicate the problem again.
You amaze me with your intelligence, your way of analising something I could never consider doing and putting it all in to perspective.
I hope you are coping well and are happy and doing the best you can with your new life.
Lots of love, Mich xoxo
Well said Mich!!!!
You have answered Liz's blog exactly as I would have. I know exactly what she is "saying" and so do you. I look at people on the street and think "You are so lucky - just going about with life not panicking about anything" (I know I could be wrong with some of them as they have their story as well) Life will never be the same after bc. I like to think my life is better - just more confusing. Instead of just cruising along I now have to "achieve" something each day even though I know it doesn't matter. See I am confused. I try so hard to "do the right thing" for ME every minute of the day - every day. Don't get me wrong I am not selfish and I still care for others. I just put ME in the picture more - others can look after themselves - like I am trying to achieve for MYSELF. If I "stood still" long enough I reckon I would "spin out". I don't want to leave this earth for a long time yet. I now understand RIP better though. We are all sooooooooooo much wiser now. XLeonie
Hi Mich - lovely to hear from you!! I actually cross-posted this from my own blog (where I write about other stuff too - it's at www.paw-paw-salad.com). I guess what I was trying to reflect on here was the pressure I sometimes felt to be a better person after cancer, with my priorities clear, no longer 'sweating small stuff' etc etc. I wish that cancer could have provided some kind of magical, perfect perspective on my life and my priorities - it seems to for some people, but I guess my experience didn't match the myth!! You're absolutely right in guessing that I found the first year post-treatment a very difficult and confusing time. You're also right in guessing that I've turned a bit of a corner recently - touch wood. I'm trying to be more forgiving of myself (and my still-mixed-up priorities), and to tell myself that it's OK to sort out what I want in this next phase one small step at a time, rather than expecting that cancer will provide me with perfect insight into how I should live my life. Does that make sense??
Hope things are good with you!
Cheers
Liz
Hey Liz
It all makes perfect sense and I am glad I understood where you were coming from and I believe most of us are in the same boat and it takes time to process everything we have been through and it takes time to make the changes.
It is all still about one step at a time, slowly, slowly.
Good luck with it all luvy. Hope the Darwin weather is being kind to you.
Lots of love, Mich xoxo
And I guess I was also wanting to reflect on the notion that life-threatening experiences inspire people to change for the better, see each day as a gift, etc etc...while in reality these feelings can be very hard to hold on to (and failing to hold onto them can make us feel like we've failed in some way!!).
Great read
I really enjoyed reading your post Liz as you express so well what I myself, and I suspect many other cancer survivors, are feeling. I'm still waiting to have my revelation about how to better live my life. I'm constantly struggling to make small adjustments - drink more green tea, eat more broccoli etc - but I feel like I'm fiddling around the edges (frequently backsliding) and should be making some grand, sweeping change. Even though, like Flitcraft, I guess I'm pretty content with most aspects of my life.
It's a bit like when you're going through the chemo and radiation and friends and aquaintances tell you that you're "so brave". I didn't feel particularly brave, it was just something I had to get through. But people - society if you like - feel they have to impose a meaning on these experiences because they're so scary and dramatic.
I wonder whether the whole idea of "cancer will give you a new perspecitive and change you life for the better" is just a way of putting a positive spin on something that is essentially pretty awful. I'm not saying that's a bad thing - I think it's imporatant to try and keep positive about life - it's just not necessarily completely true. I don't know...I guess, like you, I'm still mulling it all over.
Got to go and wake up the kids now but I will check out your blog later. Janet :)
Hi Janet. I can identify with absolutely everything you've said (and as I type I have right here beside me a cup of - you guessed it - green tea!!). Perhaps it is part of human nature to want to impose positivity and meaning on experiences that are frightening and random? But when you're the one in the 'hot seat' (as it were), this can mean you feel like a bit of a failure if the meaning that society tells you will burst forth doesn't materialise...at least, not very clearly!! Don't know if I'm making sense...it's late (what am I doing still drinking that bloody tea?!?). I totally relate to feeling weird about being told you're "brave" during treatment. I read a book called 'Yellow Birds' recently about a veteran of the Iraq war who reacted very negatively to being told he was "brave" when he got home, as he felt he'd just done what he needed to do to survive. Though the experiences are (obviously) very different, I could identify!
Why should life threatening experiences change us for the better? Read Christopher Hitchens' Mortality for a more realistic take on the old saw - what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.
Cancer changes us in all sorts of ways, and not always for the better, despite the popular pink tinted glasses approach. Be gentle with yourself; small slow changes and achievements are more likely to be worthwhile in the end. The end of treatment often provokes a sense of fear and confusion, where we go from being the centre of medical attention to establishing our own new sense of what is normal.
Best wishes for the continuing journey.... Pam
Hi Pam - lovely to hear from you. I have been a little afraid to read 'Mortality' (though I read one of the columns from it during treatment, when a friend sent it to me, and I enjoyed it very much). Your comment has made me think that it's time to read it. (I'm wondering about 'The Emperor of Maladies', too, but can't cope with too much cancer-reading all at once...will have to pace myself!). Good advice about slow changes being more likely to be ones that stick. I'm discovering that they're all that I'm (hopefully) capable of. Cheers, Liz
I Hear You
As I was reading I was nodding. Up until a few weeks ago I was there, I was waiting for the lightening bolt to hit me. The one that would supply me the clarity and energy to pursue all those good deeds that I am supposed to launch myself into. I have made the adjustments that I hope will lead to a healthier me. Now I was trying to work out what adjustments will lead me to the "new" me. During chemo I consumed the Spooks and NCIS series, along with a million words from my favourite espionage and crime writers, surely I have picked up some sleuth like skills by osmosis that will help me solve the problem.........or not.
And then a few weeks ago I came across a passage when reading a cancer survivors story. And the words resonated with me. " I used to work and think that time was money. Time is not money. Time is everything."
So, deep breath, time is everything. I can work with this. No lightening bolt needed just time. I'm now thinking that in my own time I will discover my new life course, make any adjustments that I need to, resume what I want to from my pre treatment days. No doubt it wont happen fast enough for me there are bound to be days when I will want the lightening bolt. But it is good to know that there are others who are taking time too.
Onwards we go to the next version of ourselves.
Hi - thanks so much for your comment. I love that quote!! As I came through treatment I was definitely waiting for the lightning bolt - and I'm still waiting!!! You're right, I reckon - giving yourself time is absolutely key, and not feeling bad if it takes a while to work out what changes (if any) you want to make...and even longer to actually implement them. All the best....Liz
What more??
I try so hard to "forget" breast cancer - as most family members recommend for me. Just a little bit hard......constant medical appts just to make sure that the curse hasn't raised its head again; huge lymphodema painful arm; side effects of hormonal drugs; many beautiful Pink Sisters living shitful worrying lives; the loss of many Pink Sisters waaaay before their time. Should I be grateful that I don't work due to unreliable health?? This blog has really made my thoughts come to the surface. I know that I am "on the right track" - I have been fortunate (in my quest for health) to find so many beautiful people. I have the most amazing Life Coach, Massuese, Chiropractor, Keniesologist and Herbalist. I definately am High Maintenance. This in itself scares the hell out of me and as you could imagine - COSTLY. Not sure when I will "settle down" - if ever!!! I am trying to find SOMETHING - I often feel that a piece of the puzzle is missing. I note from the other comments that I AM NORMAL - that is if all of you Pink Sisters are NORMAL????? At least we have each other to compare with and consult with. Thanks for the comments. XLeonie
Hi Leonie in Rockhampton
Hi Leonie,
I hear you and what you are saying. I have some of your symptoms also. Thanks for expressing it so well.
At times I feel " guilty ", I should be doing more, but then I just say to myself.." do what we can ".. listen to our bodies, keep searching and things DO pop out at us sometimes and ideas, solutions, can become clear. Do not give up also I guess.
Have you seen the movie. " The Best Marigold Hotel " with Judi Dench?
In it is the quote " Do not worry everything will work out in the end; If it is not OK, then, it is not the end. " It is a good movie, with humour, drama, interesting characters and emotions. I have seen it twice. Cheers Kathy. ooxx.
Ah, Leonie - like you say, so, so hard to "forget". Just as well there are other Pink Sisters out there who understand this!!! I'm still figuring out whether I'm on the right track and what the missing puzzle pieces are - here's to being very patient and kind to ourselves while we're figuring it out. I hope that the wonderful team you've put together provide lots of help and inspiration. All the very best...Liz
Hello Liz in Darwin
Hi Liz,
Good to hear from you. Happy you have made the 12 months goalpost and fingers crossed it continues that way.
I look back and see I went through grief, loss, bargaining, anger, fear, sadness and many other emotions over the years, post BC. Every day I still think of it, but also I have made small changes too ( which can, over the years, connect to bigger changes perhaps; ) plus met many new people and reconnected to some old friends.
Life is always changing. Learning to " go with it " and "accepting what is"...is something I try to do now. I am far from " perfect ".. Learning to forgive yourself.. and then others can be a weight off your back. Life can change in a second, so the uncertainty of how long we will be here can be magnified after a life threatening illness or experience.
I have watched some of Sopranos myself in the past. I like the opening music and the layers of stories within the series episodes.
Do not think others have " all " the answers, all the time. No one is perfect and comparing ourselves to other people might be counter productive.
Keep searching..you have come so far already. ooxx
Kathy.
Hi Kathy. It's great to get a sense of perspective from others who are further along this road. I see now that figuring out what changes I want to make will be an ongoing process, not something that happens within a certain time frame in a clear cut way. I also LOVE the theme song of The Sopranos - the fact that I feel this way despite associating it with chemotherapy just shows what a kickass song it is!!!
Hi Liz
Yeah.. Kick some ass.
We are a long time dead.
( For me.. connecting with peopl is a way I can perhaps " give back " It takes focus off myself and listening to others grief can be uplifting, in that I have experienced it myself, and when I see them eased a bit in anxiety perhaps. Loss, grief is universal, not only in BC. I volunteer at local Vinnies, and Information Centre. I have made some new friends there and we have " fun " mostly. Lately I have been thinking " Maybe I could do more ? " I also want to travel and see a few more places in Australia, plus I have a first grandchild too, I am enjoying seeing growing up.)
So, my health, my family, my community and beyond are my priorities now. Seems simple and obvious now, but looking back I used to be micro managing others and not looking at myself perhaps.
We really only need the simple things to keep living.. Food, shelter, air, water.. The rest is an added bonus, so we have a lot to be grateful for. It is easy to get caught up in what we do not have, than what we do.
As they say on SBS ..7 billion people; 7 billion stories.
Kathy.
Absolutely, Kathy! I think I enjoy social work as a profession largely because of the way focusing on other people's 'stories' (a few amongst those 7 billion) takes you out of yourself. A lot to ponder in what you say about you shifted priorities - I can identify with the micro-management of others....!