Wednesday, October 18, 2006

The Price of Admission

I'm sure you remember the classic Pogo cartoon--"We have met the enemy, and he is us."

That's a bit like what going through chemotherapy is. We can be our own worst enemy. From my own experience, and that's all I have, my nausea -threshold is something that I can both raise and lower with certain thoughts. If I just imagine drinking another
Readi-Cat 2 pina-colada, I can literally feel the waves of nausea beginning. If I concentrate on the beginning flicker of illness, I can feel it grow and crest. In fact, I can make this happen a dozen time before lunch.

And it's hard not to concentrate on how you're feeling. I find myself struggling to not put every sensation under my mental magnifying glass--but, I'm also finding that it's something I can control by not focusing on it.

I know this isn't easy, and is perhaps even counter-intuitive. For many months I didn't pay attention to what my body was telling me, and my cancer may have spread because of it. But we can choose what we think about, and to the best of my ability I'm choosing to not magnify and exaggerate every new or different sensation--even those that aren't pleasant--into something that can make me sick.

I'm not naive enough to believe that I can control all this, or that I won't get legitimately ill, but all I have to do is get through the next three months.
I can do this standing on my head.

And this is your price of admission. Along with what's really going on with my chemo, you have to read what I think is going on. I hope it helps.