Another four weeks have passed and here I am again.
I step into the exam room and it’s me versus that crinkly paper on the exam table. Every four weeks and, sometimes with a few appointments sprinkled in between, I am forced into being “the patient.”
Do I sit on this cold, leather exam table with the crinkly paper, or do I sit in the soft, cushioned chair that makes me feel like a person?
In my mind, and in that moment, not sitting on that exam table is the one and only thing I can control in my life as someone living with an incurable cancer diagnosis. I am living with a diagnosis of metastatic breast cancer, which has made it loud and clear that I am not in the driver’s seat here.
Finding Calm in the Chaos
I have always thrived off of structure, routine, and, maybe to a fault, always liked things to go a certain way. In my professional life and in my personal life. Maybe a little controlling, maybe a little: I’m going to set personal goals and take the bull by the horns to achieve them.
Regardless of how to describe it, I always felt a sense of calm when my life was orderly and seemingly going the way I had hoped. I got married to an amazing person, I had two beautiful daughters, I had over 20 years working in a career that I loved. Life was beautiful.
And then I was diagnosed with stage 4 metastatic breast cancer. My world was turned upside down, and I lost myself.
I went from initially being diagnosed early stage, and being really angry, just wanting to get through my surgeries, treatments, and get back to my “normal life,” to a complete shift in my perspective on life once being diagnosed metastatic less than four years later. My body was sabotaging itself. I had no control over what was happening.
But I recognized that I did have control over how I reacted to this new diagnosis and the way I chose to live my life moving forward.
Catching a Glimpse of the Person, not the Patient
I have learned to walk through each day, holding hands with both joy and fear. Some days, one is squeezing my hand a little tighter than the other.
I have learned to take note of and appreciate the ordinary things in life and to find something to be grateful for each day, even on the challenging days.
I have learned to advocate for myself at my doctor appointments and to not settle for responses that don’t sit well with me or leave my questions unanswered. I have learned that even though I am living with a stage 4 cancer diagnosis, there are moments in between appointments, scans, bloodwork, medications, and side effects when I don’t feel like a cancer patient at all. I feel like a person, with glimpses of who I used to be.
Then the reminder pops up on my calendar.
Four weeks have passed, and I am thrown back into the waiting room, where I can feel eyes staring at me for being the youngest in the room. Where the phlebotomist calls me in for bloodwork, and my anxiety takes over as she plays vein roulette, hoping not to have to be stuck three times and leave with bruising from blown veins. Where the nurse walks me to the exam room and I am faced with my arch nemesis: the exam table.
Despite the waiting room and bloodwork experience, it’s the exam table that solidifies my status as “the patient.” I do this dance every four weeks. We go over the bloodwork, discuss how I’m feeling on my medications, discuss the plan for scans, and for future bloodwork.
Choosing Myself
Every four weeks, I make it a point to choose the soft cushion chair to sit on and talk to the doctor. I choose the chair because at that moment, I can not control what the outcome of my bloodwork might be or when my next scans will be scheduled. I can not control the feelings of fear, anxiety, sadness, and uncertainty that are overwhelming me. I can not control the grief I am feeling when I can’t find the person I use to be before cancer.
But, in that moment, when it is me versus the exam table, I can control how I treat myself.
I give myself grace and feel empowered that by choosing to sit in the soft, cushioned chair, I can still choose me.
The person, not the patient.
