But they never warn you about the hardest part.
Cancer forces you to face your shortcomings and flaws, head on and lightning fast. Not only have things outside of your control changed, but now you have to change yourself. It will be different for every person, but it's going to have to happen. And it isn't easy.
I've always been a pretty independent person and that independence has only grown as I've gotten older. I live by myself. I pay all my own bills. I take care of my dog. I work a full-time job. I'm single. Though I adore my loved ones, I tend to only rely on them for emotional support. Everything else, I can do for myself - I can open that pickle jar, I can kill that spider, I can give someone a tongue lashing if they're disrespecting me. Then in strolls cancer and I can't be that independent anymore.
My mom and best friend took turns babysitting me 24 hours a day for my first week of recovering from surgery. I couldn't drive myself around for the first month. I couldn't lift anything heavier than a milk jug. I couldn't walk my dog. I couldn't go to work. Disability was paying my bills, not me. I hardly had enough energy to wipe my own ass, let alone open a pickle jar. I had to force myself to ask for help. I had to change my independence. I had to let go and let others help me so that I could heal.
I've always been a fighter. Put an obstacle in front of me and I'll do my best to smash it to rubble. The radiation and chemo kept me in good spirits because I was fighting, I was doing something. Then the daily treatment stopped and I didn't know what to do with myself. I didn't know how to just sit around and wait for 8 weeks to see if anything worked.
My optimism and strength vanished. I struggled, I broke down constantly. There was nothing for me to do. I had to change my fight into patience. Patience has never been a virtue for me. With nothing to do, I got trapped in my own head often. I had to re-train myself, teach myself to be alone and find peace. Teach myself to quiet my mind and focus on other things. Teach myself to stop over-thinking like I have my entire life and just accept that I've done all I can do for now. The rest is in the hands of Science for now.
I could go on for about twenty more paragraphs about the things I've had to change, tweak or squash about myself. But this post isn't so much about the details of my struggle as it is a hope that it can be an insight to people about some of the deeper, unseen struggles of cancer, so that when you tell someone going through cancer "you're so strong" maybe you'll have a better understanding of the strength it takes. Anyone can take medicine, lay on a table as they shoot lasers at them or sit in a chair for hours with an IV. But the hardest parts of cancer, most people don't have a clue about; nobody speaks about it, nobody warns you about it.
