Getting Over Something

Back in mid-March, I came down with something: something respiratory, something congestive. Something like a common cold, but something not like a common cold either.

Something.

A variation of it had been kicking around our court for weeks. One never got really, really sick, but just went around feeling blah and achey and maybe but not necessarily coughing.

And it wasn't the flu, which also made the rounds of schools and court.

My something hit at an inconvenient time, not that any illness is ever timed conveniently. I'd just gotten my walking boot, I'd just been at an eleven hour conference at which I presented twice, and I'd just gone back into school mediations with both feet because my coworker Dodie, who'd just spent four weeks covering for me, was taking a long-planned (and well-deserved) trip out of town and now I was covering for her.

In short, not a time to be messing around with something. And here I am, two weeks later, still messing around with it. I am impatient to be "better." I am impatient with the slow progress. All the same, I know why I not recovering as quickly as my heart desires:

• I'm still recovering from surgery, which took a lot out of me;
• It's been a long, cold winter with the house and cars closed up (no fresh air here); and 
• I'm stretched way thin on the job (adding tired on top of tired).

In the spirit of full disclosure, I should also add:

• I'm about to turn 62; and 
• I do have cancer (always, always) and shouldn't be surprised by anything. Ever.

Well, okay, I am not surprised. Ill at ease, but not surprised.

I'm ill at ease because this little episode is triggering strong memories of the months leading up to my diagnosis in November, 2004. That August, I'd had pneumonia. Then the weight started peeling away. In October, I ran into my doctor in the produce section of a now defunct grocery and told her that I just wasn't bouncing back. I still remember Pat holding her vegetables while she eyed me up and down, then saying, with not a trace of levity in her voice, "You need to come in and see me." Three weeks later, I was diagnosed.

I recently wrote about trauma, my own and that of others. A number of psycho-oncologists classify receiving a cancer diagnosis as a significant traumatic episode that may well cause PTSD in the patient. Put me in that group, based on my prior trauma. As I slog my way through this something, I am well aware that I am on alert. I'm constantly checking and rechecking how I feel. I am vigilant of how many acetaminophen tablets I am taking a day, not because of drug overload but as a measuring stick of how I am feeling right now. (No, this right now. I mean, this right now.) I keep muttering to myself, "It's not cancer. It's not cancer." (And this is where my mind goes when I am triggered: it makes no difference to my tension that Warren also has this something, caught from me, and is getting over it as well. That's different.)

The likelihood is that it is not the myeloma flaring. It is just a cold hanging on a bit too long. Just something. Once I know deep inside myself that I'm okay, then I can stand down.

Here's to better days for us all.