I’ve been nursing a lingering cough since before Christmas.
At first I didn’t think too much of it. I’d caught the upper respiratory virus
that circulated through my kindergarten classroom, but after suffering through
a few feverish nights and a week of congestion, all that remained was a mild
residual cough.
It stayed with me through the holidays. By mid-January my patience
was waning. Any attempt at physical exertion left me winded, which hampered my
daily exercise habit, which increased my stress level, which made me reach for
comfort food...you get the picture.
I found myself shivering in the evenings, unable to get warm
enough, which was unusual for my hot-flashy self. Yes it was colder than normal
outside, but I was chilled to the bone. Until I went to bed, at which point I
started sweating like Frosty in a greenhouse.
My frustration came to a head last weekend. Tired of being tired and
sick, I dragged myself to Urgent Care. The doctor thought my lungs sounded
clear, but she did notice some tightness. She ordered a breathing treatment. I smoked the
anti-asthmatic peace pipe and she took another listen to my lungs. Still tight.
“I don’t think we need an x-ray,” she said, looking at my
electronic record. “I’ll give you a prescription for a steroid and you can go
home and rest.”
My last x-ray was ordered three years ago by my radiation oncologist,
shortly before he left the grid of the hospital where he worked and
disappeared off the radar, ostensibly to prevent him from “stealing” patients
from the medical group running the place. “With your history, it’s a good idea
to do one yearly,” he’d cautioned.
“I’d feel better with an x-ray,” I prodded. “With my
history, I get a little nervous.”
The urgent care doctor humored me by honoring my request. The x-ray looked fine and she sent me home. I took the prescribed course of prednisone (which, by the
way, did nothing to improve my breathing or quiet my cough) for five days
and…woke up with a rash on my surviving breast on the sixth.
It bore a suspicious resemblance to the cellulitis diagnosed
by my oncologist in the exact same spot two years earlier. (While the
oncologist might seem like an odd specialist to see for a garden-variety rash,
I’d enlisted her expertise because I knew that inflammatory breast cancer can
present as a rash and, with my history, it was worth ruling out.)
Back to the doctor I went. My regular doctor was booked
solid, so I saw the nurse practitioner. She could neither confirm nor deny the
cause of the rash, but did hear the concern in my voice. “My history,” I
explained apologetically. “I get nervous about these things.”
And I do. The words that ring in my ears when I cough and
can’t draw a deep breath are the ones my oncologist used when we had our
initial conversation about my treatment plan.
“If it came back, God forbid, the most likely places it would show up would be the brain,
bones, liver, and lungs.”
This is the reality of bearing the vexing weight of a prior cancer diagnosis or two. You go about your business, ever pushing past your fears of recurrence, reminding yourself how lucky you are to
be alive and healthy, while a little dark whisper in your gut waits for the
other shoe to drop.
I know, of course, that cancer—or any serious illness or
injury, for that matter—can happen to anyone, that we all walk a little closer
to the line that divides life from death than we realize, and that a perpetual
state of hyper-vigilance causes more chronic, worrisome harm than good.
I also know that early detection is often the best key to survival.
I just need to find a way to balance my efforts to advocate for my health with a liberal dose
of reality, lest I develop a debilitating case of hypochondria. I have to find a way to be proactive in managing my physical concerns without pandering to
paranoia.
Waiting, watching, and doing whatever I can to distract myself from the fact that I am still, five years post-treatment, watching and waiting.