“How are you?” It seems a simple enough query, albeit one that is rarely answered truthfully (or even asked as a real question, for that matter). However even when you’re dutifully responding, “fine, how are you?” you generally have some idea of how you actually feel. Or so I thought.
About a month ago, my oncologist started our appointment with that very question. Of course, in his case, he was actually asking and so I gave him what I thought was a genuine answer: that I was having a fair amount of back pain and sciatica and that I was a little tired, but my mouth sores were clearing up so overall, I was feeling ok. He then proceeded to pull out my bloodwork and tell me just how not ok I was! Apparently my neutrophil (a type of white blood cell) count was critically low and I had a condition called neutropenia (which coincidentally causes fatigue, aches and pains, and mouth sores).
So if objective, scientific measurements were telling me there was a problem, why on earth did that feel normal to me? I mean, obviously I don’t have a strong track record of knowing how I’m doing – a year ago I thought I was burnt out only to discover I had Stage IV cancer! But having paid extremely close attention to every little symptom since then, you would think I would be a bit better at gauging my present condition.
Unfortunately, like the proverbial frog in the boiling water, my sense of “ok” appears to be out of alignment. It probably doesn’t help that I refuse to let my illness slow me down, particularly at work, where I just can’t shake the need to prove that I can do just as much as I used to and then some! Perhaps I’m still in the denial phase of the stages of grief. Regardless, I have some recalibrating to do (if I can just figure out how) because I am apparently on a cross-country road trip with a non-functioning gas gauge.
That being said, these days, the whole world seems to be out of alignment! Three plus months of quarantine are making many of us re-evaluate our priorities and causing us to question individual convenience vs. the greater good. Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Amy Cooper, Chief Allan Adam, George Floyd and more have shown us just how deeply the roots of white privilege run. All of us have become the frog in the boiling water when it comes to what we thought was “normal” back at the start of the year.
So while I try to figure out what “fine” actually does and does not feel like, hopefully the rest of the world can join me in recalibrating because clearly, we all have some work to do!
As a quick status update, I am happy to report that my most recent bone scan and CT are both showing no sign of progression, which means my treatment is doing exactly what it’s supposed to. However, my most recent bloodwork tells me I’m neutropenic again (fortunately this time without the mouth sores) so it’s 1 more week of rest before I start my next round of chemo. If you’d asked me how I felt this morning, I would have still said, “fine” so maybe I should just stop answering that particular question!
C is for Colleen 