Is it a journey or a battle?

October 24, 2015November 23, 2021 / edebock / 4 Comments

There are many metaphors that people use to describe cancer… a dark scary cave, a parasite, an obstacle, a roadblock, a hard stroke of fate, a great burden, a marathon, a drama, a dance. Understandably, Lance Armstrong, visualized his cancer as the most important bicycle race he’d ever entered.

I entitled my very first blog post about cancer “A new journey…” using one of the most common analogies for the disease. Is it any wonder that someone like myself, struck with wanderlust, would use a travel metaphor? It seemed to come naturally to me, and I have continued to use it ever since.

Having cancer is like going on a journey without a map. We have no idea how long the trip will be or where it will take us. There are unexpected twists and turns and bumps in the road. Thankfully, I don’t travel it alone. Just as he was always by my side as we explored various parts of Asia, Richard is my traveling companion. The journey is as much his as mine and the outcome will affect him as much as me. Unlike many of our wanderings in countries like South Korea, Vietnam and Cambodia, we don’t make this trip without travel guides. We have a whole team of medical professionals showing us the way and a host of friends and family cheering us on.

This is not the only metaphor that I use to refer to my cancer, however. The military metaphor seems to have fallen from favour in recent times, but I believe that it is apt and I, for one, will continue to use it. As fellow neuroendocrine cancer warrior, Ronny Allan, recently wrote on his blog,

“I don’t like Cancer – it attacked me, it attacked my family, it attacked others I know, it has killed people I know……. it has killed millions of people and changed many lives. I’m ‘fighting’ Cancer. I’m in a ‘battle’ with Cancer.”

Yes, Ronny. Yes, you are. We both are. We’re fighting for our lives and cancer is the enemy!

Apparently, there are both bloggers and professionals who don’t think that we should use this kind of language. Some claim that such language is inherently masculine, power-based and paternalistic. Really? Girls can’t fight? You just watch me! Others feel that using a military metaphor suggests that if one loses the war against cancer, she must not have fought hard enough. Nonsense! If I lose this battle, it will be because the weapons of this war are not yet perfected and our understanding of the enemy is limited.

We do have weaponry, however. We fight with surgical tools and with chemical and nuclear warfare. Like soldiers, we strive to carry ourselves through battle with courage, grace, and dignity and most of us have scars to show that we’ve been engaged in battle.

Walking the third pathway: living with chronic cancer

October 23, 2015 / edebock / Leave a comment

“Have you finished having treatments yet?”

“How many more treatments do you have to have?”

These are questions that I’m asked constantly. When someone has cancer, people usually expect one of two outcomes; either you’re cured or you die. Because two years have passed since my neuroendocrine cancer was diagnosed and I’m obviously still very much alive, people automatically assume that I must fall into the first category, those who beat the disease and move on. Few are even aware that there’s a third pathway. With proper treatment, however, some cancers are considered chronic. Though incurable, they can often be controlled with proper treatment and the patient can live what appears to be a relatively normal existence. That’s the road that I’m on.

“Have you finished having treatments yet?”

No. I’ll probably have to have them for the rest of my life.

“How many more treatments do you have to have?”

That depends entirely on how long I live.

People are usually startled by my responses, but this is the reality that I live with. It’s entirely possible that I’ll eventually die of my cancer, but I could also die with it. All I can say for sure is that, at present, things are going in the right direction. I had another treatment on Tuesday morning and the follow up scans showed that my primary tumour, which is located in my colon, has continued to shrink. In fact, it’s tiny compared to the size it was at diagnosis. That, in itself, was very good news, but we also learned that the largest of the three tumours on my liver has now started to diminish in size and there are no new growths. Obviously, the treatments are working! How long that will continue to be the case, no one has any idea, but we do know that there are new treatments on the horizon and when this one stops working, there will probably be something else that we can try.

So, what’s it like walking this third pathway?

There are plenty of things that I’d still like to accomplish in life and places I’d like to go. Some I’d like to return to and others I want to see for the first time. It may sound surprising, but there hasn’t been a huge sense of urgency to try to cram these things into whatever time I might have left. Perhaps that’s because our focus for the past two years has been largely on fighting, not one, but two cancers; the neuroendocrine tumours (NETS) that put me on the third pathway as well as the completely separate and unrelated cancer that was diagnosed seven months later. With that one out of the way and my NETS well under control now, maybe we can begin to focus more on crossing things off my unwritten bucket list, but the lack of urgency may also be due to the fact that I don’t really sense that my end is imminent. You see, I really hope to be one of the ones who dies with this disease, not of it.

I still plan for the future, but I’ve also been learning to inhabit one square on the calendar at a time. Walking this pathway has definitely given me a greater appreciation for the moment and for the small things in life. I’ve always loved hiking, but the delight that it gave me this summer was greater than ever before. I was simply so thankful to be able to do it! I don’t take things like that for granted anymore.

I’ve always been one who believed in living life to the fullest; now I just have to do that within the confines of my treatment. There are limitations, of course, especially during a week like this one when I’m highly radioactive, but overall, I am blessed to be able to continue living a fairly normal life.

The colours of cancer

October 17, 2015October 17, 2015 / edebock / 3 Comments

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month and the world around us is turning pink. Professional football players wear pink booties and gloves, NASCAR drivers dress in pink and drive pink cars, and restaurants serve up pink drinks and even pink burgers! In October anything pink sells; everything from pink vacuum cleaners to pink tools and coveralls. Don’t get me wrong; I have nothing against increasing awareness of the disease that is one of the leading causes of death for Canadian women. It took the life of one of my dearest friends just over nine years ago, but I’m fully behind the “Think before you pink” movement that strives to draw attention to the fact that all is not what it appears to be in the world of pink.

Samantha King is the author of Pink Ribbons, Inc., a 2006 book that examined how breast cancer has become a dream come true for some companies that want to bask in the glow of corporate do-gooding. An associate professor of kinesiology and health studies at Queen’s University in Kingston, King helped popularize the term “pinkwashing” to describe campaigns that flaunt the ubiquitous pink ribbon but have negligible effects on the realities of breast cancer. Some companies use pink ribbon related marketing to increase sales while contributing only a tiny fraction of the proceeds to the cause, or use pinkwashing to improve their public image while manufacturing products that may, in fact, be carcinogenic.

Any company can put pink ribbons on its products. When purchasing cancer awareness products, be a savvy shopper. Check the label or tag and ensure that a percentage of the purchase price is actually going to a recognizable foundation or non-profit organization. Oftentimes, making a direct donation to your favourite cancer charity is actually a better way to go.

Is pink the only colour of cancer though? Absolutely not! In fact, there are awareness ribbons in practically every colour imaginable, each one representing a different cancer. Ovarian cancer is teal, uterine cancer peach, liver cancer emerald green and colon cancer dark blue. Prostate cancer is light blue, testicular cancer orchid, leukemia orange and mesothelioma royal blue.

And what of my cancers? Head and neck cancers are burgundy and white, but that one is gone, hopefully for good. This is the ribbon that I wear:

The zebra stripe represents neuroendocrine (NETS) and carcinoid cancers. It’s not surprising that we zebras don’t get as much attention as those pink people do. After all, there aren’t very many of us. In Canada, specific numbers for neuroendocrine cancer are not even reported separately, but in the US there are an estimated 8000 new cases each year. Compared to the approximately 294 500 new cases of breast cancer that are expected to be diagnosed in that country in 2015, that’s a very tiny number, but we need awareness too. There are family doctors who have never heard of neuroendocrine cancer. They have no idea what it is, how it’s treated or that it’s incurable. A locum filling in at our local hospital actually questioned whether I had cancer at all!

Blogs devoted to NET cancer awareness:

https://ronnyallan.wordpress.com

http://walkingwithjane.org

The meaning of dreams

October 16, 2015 / edebock / Leave a comment

Most of my dreams seem ridiculous and random. If I remember them at all, I certainly don’t analyze them or try to figure out what they might signify. Others, however, are recurring and do seem to have meaning.

As a child and young adult, I often had gory dreams about having all my teeth pulled or knocked out. When this happened, I’d often wake up with a sore jaw, but little did I realize that I was grinding my teeth during the night! Since I started sleeping with a bruxism splint, I’ve never had one of those dreams again.

For many years, in spite of the fact that I enjoyed my teaching career, in the days leading up to each new school year I had what I called my “school dreams“. These were dreams in which everything went wrong. All a teacher’s worst nightmares would visit me as the end of August approached! Though I anticipated the beginning of each new school year with excitement, I recognized that my strange dreams were a symptom of the stress involved in teaching. When these dreams started recurring several years after I retired, however, I was puzzled, but I soon figured out that my brain still equates stress with teaching. Regardless of the cause, it still reacts to higher than normal levels of stress by filling my nights with bizarre school dreams!

Last night, I had a series of unusually vivid dreams. In the first one, I was planning to catch a ferry. Where to, I have no idea, but I arrived early and had time to kill so I parked my car a short distance from the ferry terminal and went for a walk through the town which bore no resemblance to any place I’ve ever actually been. As I admired the historic architecture of the town, I found myself walking with another woman who urged me to explore a path that led up and over a hill between some houses. Knowing that I had a limited amount of time, I was reluctant, but I agreed to walk a little ways with her. Before long, I realized that I had gone too far and was in danger of missing my ferry. I turned around and began to run back to my car. I remember running and running and running, frantically hoping that I wouldn’t be too late. And then I woke up.

I don’t remember the second dream quite as well, but I do recall that I was supposed to be attending an awards ceremony at the local school. Shortly before it was due to begin, I was out on the street chatting with various people who all urged me to hurry home and get ready. How I got there is a bit vague, but I ended up back in an apartment, which was apparently my home, trying to figure out what to wear. As I tried on and rejected one outfit after another, I soon realized that it was only a few minutes until the event was to begin. I became more and more frantic, but I continued trying on and rejecting item after item until I finally woke up again!

Each ensuing dream became more vague than the one before, but there was a common theme. In each one, I was going to be late for something. I couldn’t help but wonder if that meant something and so this morning, I googled “the meaning of dreams”. Apparently, according to several sources, dreams of being late represent feelings about having missed an important opportunity. One so-called dream expert suggested that a person ought to respond to these dreams by asking where in your life do you feel that time is running out or what do you need to do before it does. So, I ask myself, were last night’s nocturnal imaginings telling me something of significance or did I simply eat the wrong snack before I went to bed? What, if any, opportunities have I missed?

With another cancer treatment and it’s follow-up scans coming up next week, a night of school dreams probably wouldn’t be too surprising, but the closest I can come to the lost opportunity scenario is the vague feeling that’s been growing within me lately that perhaps I ought to be doing something meaningful with my experiences of the past couple of years. What that might be, I’m not at all sure.

What do you think? Do your dreams have meaning?

Because I can

October 8, 2015October 8, 2015 / edebock / 6 Comments

Here in Canada, we are nearing the end of the longest federal election campaign in recent history. When we go to the polls on October 19th, 78 days will have passed since Prime Minister Stephen Harper asked Governor General David Johnston to dissolve Parliament and call a general election. 78 days of rhetoric and sadly, 78 days of name calling and fear mongering. How glad I am that I don’t live in the US where the electoral process goes on for many months!

Regardless of which country you live in, however, when election day finally rolls around, VOTE! Consider the issues, research the candidates, and then VOTE!

Official turnout for our last federal election, held on May 2, 2011, was 61.1%, only 2.3 percentage points higher than the all-time low of 58.8% in 2008! What is the matter with people? Why does 40% of our population fail to cast a ballot? Are we Canadians really that apathetic?

I will vote, if for no other reason than because I can. It’s a privilege that I don’t take lightly. Women before my time fought long and hard so that I could exercise this right. Women like Nellie McClung, well-known advocate and popular speaker on the subject of women’s suffrage in the early 1900s, who said “Our worthy opponents will emphasize the fact that women are the weaker vessel. Well I should think that a woman who cooks for men, washes and bakes and scrubs and sews for her family could stand the extra strain of marking a ballot every four years.”

The United States began allowing women to vote in 1920, after the ratification of the 19th Amendment to their Constitution. Here in Canada, many women voted for the first time the following year, but it wasn’t until much later that all Canadians had the right to vote. Most “people of colour” were prohibited from voting at the provincial and federal level until the late 1940s and it wasn’t until 1960 that every Canadian of age had the right to vote. That’s right! 1960! Prior to that time, aboriginal Canadians were required to give up their treaty rights and renounce their status under the Indian Act in order to qualify for the vote.

While I consider our record abysmal, there are places where the situation is much worse. Women in Saudi Arabia are registering to vote for the first time in history, but keep in mind that they won’t be able to drive themselves to the polling stations as they are still completely banned from driving. They won’t even be able to leave their homes to go and vote without being accompanied by a male guardian!

On election day, get off your butt and VOTE! Don’t make excuses. Don’t be one of the apathetic masses. Vote, if for no other reason than because you can!

October!

October 1, 2015 / edebock / 10 Comments

“I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.”
L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

October is my favourite month; a bittersweet interlude between summer and winter. Here in Alberta, it arrives amidst a blaze of colour, but by the end of the month, there will likely be snow on the ground. Each golden day is a treasure.

The tiny hamlet of Gwynne, located midway between Camrose and Wetaskiwin, is nestled in a valley that is absolutely gorgeous in the fall. We often take that route on our way to Edmonton, but until today we’d never stopped to explore the area. I recently learned of two hiking trails in the valley, however, and they were today’s destination.

The first, officially called the CPR Canyon Hiking Trail, is a relatively easy 4 km walk along a creek. The name seems apt as the railway follows the creek on the opposite bank and three trains rumbled by while we were hiking. It’s known locally, however, as Chickadee Trail and we soon found out why!

The inquisitive little critters were landing on my outstretched hand before we even took any food out of the pack on Richard’s back. Soon we were sharing lunch!

There were six geocaches hidden along the trail which added to our fun.

The second trail circled through Pipestone Creek Conservation Lands where we searched out three more geocaches and enjoyed some spectacular views including an oxbow lake.

There are clearly many more trails criss-crossing the conservation area and we found a lovely little campground close by, so I suspect that we’ll be spending more time there in the future.