Thinking, or not...

Stopping off to see my radiation oncologist the other day (who was kind enough to talk to me about a question of the moment regarding DHEA (a hormone I was thinking of taking)), I was surprised to discover in the course of our conversation that anemia is an effect of the course of treatment I've pursued. Probably someone told me about it before and I've just forgotten. Anyway, I've started taking a multi-vitamin to address the anemia a bit until I hear from the lab about it.  And DHEA is not something to pursue right now.

And then I've been working on some decisions I have to make about my status with my employer and how to handle all that. I think I've made some decisions which will allow me to get into some recovery zone before coming off disability.

But doing all that made me think about the level of time-consuming work and thought that goes into just living day-to-day with cancer and the effects of treatment. So often we hear it referred to as "fighting cancer" and that phrase sounds so active and brave. But I have come to agree with a news article my cousin sent me that questions the "fight" language. It feels more like living - with the cancer, with the treatment, with the odd, annoying, depressing effects of the treatment - than it feels like fighting.  It's more of a walk, too, than a fight, mainly because one wakes up and tries to go through the day (and night) with another thing tagging along. And maybe that thing was there all the time but the events that nudged the thing into outline have caused it to morph suddenly into a thing (if that makes sense).
Awareness being what it is makes me question just what it is I think I'm aware of now.  And hormones being what they are make me wonder how long I will be able to retain a thought, any thought, before forgetting what it is that seemed important enough to write about. And I do forget... more and more it seems.

Understand that I'm not putting down the use of the fight language. For one thing, it's one heckuvalot more marketable than my living and walking words are. And we have so much in our literature that fits so well with the fight words (Dylan Thomas is an easy one), nevermind the support the fight words would get from the sports world.

But just the same I wonder because at one level the fighting language means I am fighting myself. The cells that are being shut down (I hope) in me are in my body after all.  And so wouldn't it help to also think about achieving balance in some way - with my body, with the loss of old ways of perception and being, with the paths my mind runs on late in the night when the house is asleep - rather than forming my mind around a battle metaphor?

It might.  Balance seems to be very important now.