Now that I've written about how I found out about my breast cancer, how the battle began, the side effects of chemo, teaching online during chemo and COVID-19, my mental and emotional battle, and the support of family and friends, I want to sum it all up with this post about the utter weirdness of it all. It has been the strangest experience of my life, so far. Everything is different than I ever imagined 2020 being, and has been since January.
It's strange enough to be told you have cancer. It feels surreal. Suddenly everything has changed, and other people are making you appointments for medical imaging, procedures, bloodwork, and chemotherapy. There isn't really any choice in the matter; if you don't have treament, the cancer will grow, and will eventually disfigure and then kill you. Your body goes into an ongoing fight-or-flight mode. At least this is how it was for me, in late January and throughout February into mid-March. Up until that point, I felt like I was handling things pretty well, juggling work and treatment and time with family and friends. But then another major event rolled into the mix.
The COVID-19 virus seemed like something far away back in January, when I was diagnosed. By mid-March, however, it was evident that this was going to affect our lives far more than we had thought. On March 11th it was declared a global pandemic, and as schools headed into Spring Break, we teachers were told that everything would be shutting down for two weeks, or more. Suddenly EVERYTHING was different.
I knew that with a suppressed immune system I would be having to avoid large crowds and isolating myself somewhat during chemo, but I had no idea that my whole family would have to shelter at home, wearing masks to go do grocery pickup and wiping down the groceries with sanitizing wipes. We had no idea that the pandemic would last over three months, that friends of ours would lose their jobs, that the economy would be so affected, that uncertainty about infection rates, contagiousness, and personal risk would multiply, or that now, in mid-June, we would still not know when it will all be over. The anxiety of having cancer is multiplied exponentially by a health crisis of this magnitude. I'm sure it's the same for anyone with a health condition that makes them more susceptible to a virus, or with children who have underlying health issues. It feels like it affected all the areas of our life that the cancer had not yet touched.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, I could have still been teaching, seeing friends, going out to eat, meeting with church family, and generally living a normal life except for being ultra-cautious about germs and illness. But with the shelter-in-place guidelines, all of that ceased. In a way, it took a lot of the pressure off me. I could teach from home, so if I didn't feel the greatest, I no longer had to make the decision of whether to go out and teach or call a sub. Dealing with all the side effects of chemo has most likely been easier for me because I haven't had to travel around to various locations to teach, and haven't had any pressure to go out and be social.
Now that our state has begun opening up, it's still weird, mostly because of all the unknowns. How much longer will we have to be concerned about getting COVID-19? A few months? A year? Forever? How bad would the virus really be? Is it possible we have already all had it, or been exposed to it, and just don't know? Should we wear masks in public, or does that make us not breathe enough oxygen? How do we know what to believe that is written online? There are many things that are uncertain.
When will our lives ever get back to normal? Or will they not? Will we have a new normal, a different way of doing things based on my having had cancer and our avoidance of COVID-19? These are still unkowns. I tend to concentrate more on the knowns: my family, my friends, the things I have to do each day, and the beauty of nature when I reflect on it.
Fortunately, one thing has not changed during all of this: God. His presence in our lives has been a constant throughout all of this turmoil and trial. I have had peace and strength that can only come from Him. He is not surprised by all these events, and so the weirdness of it all is mitigated by the knowledge that He has a plan, even though we don't know what it is. Thus, I have had to trust Him and put my future in His hands, as I always have since the day I first began to follow Jesus Christ. My future has always been in His hands, even before I was diagnosed with cancer and before COVID-19 swept across the globe. That makes the "weirdness" seem unimportant, compared to eternal things.
And so, I conclude my official series on having cancer in the time of COVID-19, but I will continue to write about my experiences. After two more rounds of chemo I'll be having an MRI, then surgery, and then radiation. Many more blog posts to come...
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