The Adrenaline Let Down
The last round of chemo was back in December of ‘21, but with the excitement of the holidays, then our trip to Panama in January, about a dozen February birthdays (including Reegans) followed by my birthday this month, it has taken about 11 weeks for the adrenalin let down from the survival mode I’ve been stuck in for months. And for some reason, for me this phase consistently manifests itself in a couple of unusual ways, such as rearranging furniture and deep cleaning my home.
It’s instinct more than anything and I don’t realize when I’m doing it, but it’s propelled by this need to control and refresh things; to distract and keep me busy. I like to live in the now, I’m happy-go-lucky most of the time. I think I get this from my grandpa ‘K’ on my mother's side, he is always making jokes and is the life of the party.
This side of me can clash with the trudging work of needing to go back and process the past and what I’ve been through. Not sure if it this is a universal truth or simply true for me, but: it’s important to stay connected to my story. To allow for space and time to breathe and be still. When life is fast paced, always changing, shifting, and events are happening in quick succession; I do not have time to process all the feelings passing through my heart and mind. With each new “You’re still in remission” comes a whole new host of feelings that must be processed.
“Others Have Gone Through Far Worse”
When I think of the last 3 and a half years since my cancer journey started, I tend to minimize the experiences in my mind with thoughts like “others have gone through far worse” because they have. Reading stories of Martyrs for Christ has been a helpful way of keeping a good grip on reality and what others have gone through that is truly a worse hell compared to mine. Martyrs like Richard Wormbrand’s, (one of my favorite autobiographies) Darlene Diebler Rose, and the book “Endurance” by F. A. Worsley, have greatly helped build up my faith, and keep an eternal perspective.
Quiet time for bible reading and prayer journaling have also been staples for me since my young teen years and I’ve consistently (inconsistency) done it since then, I highly recommend this for anyone wanting to work on being present, and centered, as I am always working towards doing this better.
While keeping a healthy perspective on the past is so important and I don’t want to overplay or undermine what I’ve gone through, I’ve found a healthy peace in working on writing our story to (Lord willing) publish it one day in a book! In the retelling of traumatic events like ambulance rides or my first day of chemo, I’ve been surprised when I have new tears to shed over old experiences.
Going back and reliving moments, in prayer asking God to help me think about them in a healthy way, has given a path for pent up grief and a fresh look at God’s provision for me and my Dye’s.
I wanted to share an excerpt from our story, that I wrote for our book about my first chemo day. This section in particular gave way to tears in the writing process and then healthy validation for the hard things I’ve experienced, and tend to minimize, that puts those memories in place.
The First Chemo 2018
August was quickly coming to an end and my first chemo date was set for September 5th. I got a new backpack to take to chemo, like a kid on their first day of school. I brought my bible, a few books, headphones, extra bags for my colostomy and pain meds. When I walked into the infusion room, one glance around told me I was by far the youngest person in the room by at least 20 years. “What am I doing here.” I thought to myself.
A row of 6 recliners on either side of the small conference room. I took a seat less than enthusiastic about it. Nurse Sue, an older petite Asian lady came over to introduce herself to me “Hi honey, I’m Sue and I’m going to take good care of you” with an endearing Filipino accent, I immediately liked her.
The week prior I had a minor surgery, I was awake for the procedure, to put in a port just under my right collar bone. It’s essentially a small pad that goes under my skin, with a tube that runs to a major artery, so when they access the port with a needle for IV drips the medicine is going directly to a main bloodstream. The port saved me from the nurses having to try and find a good vein to poke every week to receive chemo IV, and it also allows it to flow much faster than in a vein.
Nurse Sue asked if I wanted a numbing spray before she accessed the port. “Sure?” I responded not entirely sure what it was for. She quickly sprayed my port and the area around it, then got the Huber needle and “3-2-1-poke!” Done. A small sting and it was in. She drew several vials of my blood for testing and then brought in the bags of pre-meds and hung them on my pole “Anti-nauseous, Benadryl, Steroids, Glutathione, and vitamin C”.
The glutathione was probably my least favorite, it was an instant rush of emotions, as it is a drug that crosses the blood brain barrier, and it made me feel like I’d quickly drank a giant glass of wine, tingling and numbness started at the bottom of my feet and went up. The headache and emotions that followed were short lived, but real. My shoulders slumped and I dropped my head back and closed my eyes as I fought back tears and thoughts of “why me?!” I eventually learned to turn off my brain when getting the glutathione, and I later coined the phrase “gluta-thoughts” and learned to ignore the bombardment of sad emotions and the pity-party my brain wanted to have every time.
We also would come to find out that my body is extremely sensitive to Benadryl and it affects me very negatively emotionally and takes days to wear off, but we didn’t learn this until three years later. Because I was on so many different medications at the time, of all the things that could’ve been potentially making things harder, Benadryl was at the bottom of the suspect list.
Once all the pre-meds were done dripping they brought out the chemo IV bags with all the bright warning labels and toxic signs on it. The nurses had to be very careful when handling the bags, and I was instructed to be very cautious when I was using the bathroom, because there would be chemo in my urine, and it could burn my skin or someone else’s if I wasn’t careful to flush twice and make sure I did not get anything on the toilet seat. My head started spinning with the seriousness of the situation and realizing this highly dangerous toxic chemical compound is what would be coursing through my body. Don’t get me wrong, I am so grateful for modern medicine and how it’s helped in the fight to save my life, I don’t take that for granted, it was just like introducing a small monster into my body, to fight off the bigger monster we knew was lurking, and both were terrifying.
There was part of me that couldn’t believe I willingly walked into the drip room and sat down of my own volition. The internal monologue was something like “Am I crazy? What am I doing here? What if I just run out? No, don’t be insane Rachel, you can’t run anywhere yet, you’d blow a staple. Am I sure I even have cancer, for real? I never even saw the tumor myself. What if I’m part of some pharmaceutical con to trick people into thinking they’re sick so they have to get drugs they don’t even need!”
“Is this your name and date of birth?” the nurse asked. breaking my mental spin-out.
“…. Yes.” I hesitated, wondering if I said no, could I leave?
I glanced up at the pole as it started the slow, drip, drip drip, of my first chemo.
Even If God calls me to more hard things
Reliving the realness of this situation makes me face the facts that
It really happened
It was extremely hard
God was with me; and
That season is over
Even if God calls me to more hard things down the road, I pray my heart and mind will always remember the same truths from scripture that Richard Wurmbrand leaned into on the day of his abduction in the perils of WWII in Romania 1948:
“Richard couldn’t tear his thoughts from the politician he knew who committed suicide in his prison cell only weeks after his kidnapping and arrest. Will I suffer the same fate? Richard wondered. Then he remembered the message “Do not fear” occurs exactly 366 times in the Bible, one time per day for an entire year, including leap year. For Richard, it was providential that he was abducted on February 29, a reminder that he wouldn’t need to fear what men could do to him. Fear was one emotion he would not allow to enter his prison cell. With God’s help, he could endure torture, ill treatment, disease, and even death so long as others could see Christ in his eyes.”