A Complicated Spring
It was a spring that seemed to take hold of me and not let go.
Surgery was a surprisingly more difficult thing than I’d anticipated and left me feeling quite adrift. Lots of pain meds, a drain in my chest that went across my body, then the difficulty breathing as you’re not supposed to have a 5mm tube leaning against your stomach and lung. It was necessary for me to be on a steady regimen of Tylenol, Oxycodin, and a few other things to manage the pain and let me sleep. If I moved too much too fast my lungs couldn’t keep up and I’d be left breathless otherwise. For a few days I simply slept and drifted in and out of the day. Pain has the effect of making you feel reduced somehow, less like yourself and disconnected from engaging with others. Only when they removed that second drain did I feel an enormous relief and sense of calm again.
One night I had a vivid and unusual dream that was surely brought on by the Oxy. I was taking little pieces from my chest and putting them together into creative things that I then gave away to others. It was not difficult to interpret this as the act of my collage creations that are a compilation of different elements of color, texture and paper types put together into a larger form of design. Then the design is used to create something that I give away. A reminder of work I still needed to continue.
Again, my medical experience was positive and the perfect clean surgery removed all of what they needed. In the end I was stunned to learn there was no need for additional chemo or radiation. You could have knocked me over as I waited for the outcome, so sure there was going to be another round of misery to accompany this latest experience. So there are silver linings it seems — yet again — and I was the lucky recipient of good care and early discovery of the problem. This wasn’t an aggressive cancer and might have gone undetected for a long time, but it was a rare find, and my oncologist said it was uncommon to see the thymoma and lymphoma happen in the same case. So it seems they’ll write it up and educate the medical community with my weird little circumstance.
The rest of April was capped off with an upper respiratory virus that left me with loads of congestion, coughing and an ear infection. Because my immune system was not very strong, it really took hold and hung on for three weeks.
But as we entered May, things finally started to break both in terms of my health and the weather. The gardens call out and green pushes up and out from everywhere. The weather was beautiful and fresh and clean. The simplicity of a garden should never be underestimated for its healing powers and I turned my attention to the outdoors and spending more time gardening, walking and eventually biking again.
It feels like I moved past this more easily than the first instance of cancer, mainly because it was much less intense and time consuming. My immediate reaction was one of focus and planning, using the same emotional responses that helped me through the first time. But it was also apparent from what I was told by the surgeon that my biopsy showed this being the least invasive and detrimental of the cancers of the thymus and her confidence carried me through the procedure. So in the end, I’m viewing this as just a bump in the road, a season of discomfort, and another opportunity to appreciate where I am and where I’m going.
