Let's stop this crazy whirligig of fun. I'm dizzy.

I had my first physical therapy appointment last week. It’s not for my leg, which seems more logical, given the fact that the surgeons cut ACTUAL MUSCLE out of my thigh. But my leg is mostly OK, other than the wicked scar that runs from the top of my thigh to my knee. No, this is for the lymphedema in my neck. Basically, when they take lymph nodes out of your neck, all of the fluid (or lymph) that would typically flow cleanly through the neck now gets stuck because there aren’t as many lymph nodes to flow through. 

Unfortunately, this is one of the side effects I’ve developed as a result of both the surgery and radiation. It’s not the most painful side effect (the side effects that affected my mouth get that honor) but it is the most annoying. I’ve lost mobility in my neck. Sometimes it feels like it’s made of wood, and I imagine I hear a creaking noise when I do the exercises they gave me. If I don’t do the exercises enough during the day, at night, I get a terrible headache that radiates from the base of my neck to my entire head. My neck and the area right under my chin, and around my jaw, are all still swollen from the excess fluid and scarring from surgery. If I poke the area right under my chin, it feels hard and immovable and mostly numb. It’s really uncomfortable, and the vain part of me hates it because it makes me look like I have a double chin when I’m at the lowest weight I’ve been at in years. (I realize this is a very petty complaint, but it just feels like adding insult to injury at this point.) 

This is all normal, and it was something I’d read about prior to surgery/radiation, but I was sort of hoping I was special and it wouldn’t affect me. I did this with a lot of the side effects. “Oh, this is what happens to most people? OK, sure. Thanks for telling me about it, but I’m sure I won’t have to worry about that.” 

Funnily enough, this is how I always felt about cancer, too. Like...I could never get cancer. That happens to other people, not to me. I imagine this is how most people feel and why it’s such a kick in the ass when it happens. If you spend your entire life thinking something won’t happen to you, and then it does, it feels like anything bad can happen to you. It’s hard not to fall down an anxiety rabbit hole and start planning for freak earthquakes and tornados and what if I’m on a plane and it gets hijacked and the pilots are the only ones with parachutes so they bail and everyone else passes out for some reason and then I have to try to fly and land the plane? Huh? What do I do if THAT happens? 

Anyway. 

For this appointment, we went back to Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, a place I’d been unaware of until my diagnosis. The last time I was there, I was meeting with the surgical team who gave me my initial treatment plan. I remember spending the whole day blinking away tears (mostly unsuccessfully). Staring at all of the other patients around me, some of whom had obviously been coming there for a long time, many of whom seemed much worse off than I was. Worrying and wondering about what was going to happen. Somehow working while I waited between appointments, checking email and writing snippets of stories about animals, trying to focus on anything but where I was. 

This time, no longer a newbie, having made it through the harshness of surgery, chemo, and radiation, I felt much calmer. I’d made it through the treatment, now it was time for clean up. I don’t know for sure yet that the treatment cleared up all of the cancer, but I am starting to feel better and my doctors seem optimistic, so I’m hopeful. I just want to get a handle on these last few lingering things, none of which are insurmountable, but they are still going to take a lot of work and...time, which is the hardest part. I feel so impatient to just...be better. I don’t want to wait six months after radiation for the swelling to all be gone. I don’t want to wait until a year after surgery to (hopefully) be eating and speaking somewhat normally again. I don’t want to wait (for our lives to be over)...period. It doesn’t help that I keep having dreams where things are completely normal again. I talk to people without impediment, without a thought in the world, and I sound just like I used to. It’s frustrating to wake up and find that that’s not how things really are. 

Anyway, at this appointment, the physical therapist gave me some more exercises to do. She showed me how to do some self-massage that should help, and she also massaged my neck around the scar tissue, and for the lymphedema. I’ll have follow ups for...a while, I guess. Until I get a handle on this new issue and all the other lingering issues. Still, it’s not cancer, so I guess I’ll take it. 

That’s my new coping mechanism when bad or annoying things happen to me. Car battery died? Oh well, at least it’s not cancer! Spilled water all over the floor? Oh well, at least it’s not cancer! Foster kittens pooped next to the litter box? Oh well, at least it’s not cancer! I thought cancer would make me more anxious but it’s actually made me give less of a shit about the things that don’t really matter. And if I do get anxious? Oh well, at least it’s not cancer!