A year ago tonight I was at home, physically and emotionally reeling after my first chemo. I am almost humming with jubilance that I am reflecting on this in the past tense, a whole 365 days later.
Then I immediately think of people I personally know who have been diagnosed with cancer since my own treatment ended. It makes me feel a lot less jubilant, that's for sure.
While I wait to take the follow-up MRI that will check out the "thing" on my spine (it's scheduled for March 11), God has encouraged me with some blessed interactions with other people. "Chemo brain," as it's called, is a common condition that affects people who have taken (or are taking) those powerful poisons designed to kill the cancer.
And boy, it got me big time. Space Cadet Brown - that was me for months while I was on the dope. I have experienced some SCB brain cramps since treatment that have made me wonder if I have permanent brain damage caused by the drugs. Or a brain tumor. "Cancer" is what my mind whispers when weird stuff happens with my body.
"Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you." 1 Peter 5:7
God, always present and infinitely knowing, has comforted me by reminding me of something important.
Just yesterday, I was talking with a mom outside my 4-year-old's preschool. She looks down at her hand, suddenly frantic, and begins to scan the front seat of her car. She opens up the back door of her sedan, and peers between her kids' car seats. I ask if she has lost something.
"My car keys. They were just here. UGH! Maybe I left them inside the preschool," she says.
I ask her: "Isn't your car running? Could your keys be in it?"
Just minutes before I had overheard a different mom apologizing to another one for completely spacing their long-running weekly playdate. And over coffee, I listened to a dear friend tell the beginning of an obviously fabulous story about her daughter only to forget what had happened to make it so funny.
Thank you, God. Thank you for showing me that healthy people are still ... people.
I have always been loathe to admit the following, but I have come to take profound comfort in this statement: I am a flawed human being. I am not perfect. I get headaches, back aches and sometimes I get distracted. It doesn't mean that I have a brain tumor. Or that the one in my spine is cancer, necessarily.
A year ago, before I switched oncologists, I was asked to participate in a study about "chemo brain." Although my participation didn't work out, the results of a similar study were published in December. I was interested to read that "chemo brain" seems to start before treatment has even begun.
Really, it confirmed what I have long suspected: Perhaps chemo brain is not caused so much from the poison as it is the extreme mental stress of receiving this terrifying diagnosis and all the horrific weight it carries for not only yourself, but your mate, sweet children, friends and family. I find that comforting! At least it's not permanent brain damage.
Being more flawed than usual but beautifully alive? Happy to do it. Thank you, Lord God, for more opportunities to realize that I am absolutely not most excellent You!
