COVID and Chemo; Experiencing both from my childhood bed
I am writing this hoping, I am getting to a point of coming to the end of my self isolation period. I tested positive the previous Sunday.
Something that has been a strange irony for me hopefully unquie to many of you going quarantining. I have some how ended up isolating in the same room that I went through the end run of chemo therapy over 5 years ago. I have been fortunate to have lived a really full life, I have grown as a person in the time in between. I have achieved a lot, and tried to use the experience of 5 year ago to give back to the world I entered following the completion of my chemo threapy. However that doesn’t mean you don’t question, exactly how are you still here.
In both cases their are interesting comparison in the experiences, which probably for my own mental health I am telling to you now.
- Everyone has their own story
COVID, the isolation, the disease and vaccines that are giving us our freedom have created this perception of a shared experience. We have all been doing it together so to speak. This as is often the case with this ideal of shared experience is it is anything but that. People have different symptoms, everyone’s reaction to vaccines has been different. Everyone's experience, of when they have to self isolate, were they had to self isolate, who were they with has been different. When I was volunteering at a vaccine center, my vaccinator used the the phase “its like a box of chocolates”. However the minute you get diagnosed, everyone shares their experience with you. What you should expect etc. Yet people often sharing for the right reason, project their experience on to you because they have lived it and they know. We all only know about what we are going through and should think about how to support and not project.
Chemothreapy, is strangely similar. You receive this news, of a diagnosis or a positive test. In this world I operate in, you share it with the world on social media. What comes next, is everyone else experience. You are told what to not expect that you can do. You are told that you will experience this, you will experience that. Now not to say, I am also not guilty of this. One of the hardest things to be conscious of, is that whilst we look for shared experience it is often more harmful to the person you are projecting on.
2. What you can and you can’t do everyday
In both these cases, one of the strangest flashback I have had is having to take it day to day. In both the cases I have had an understanding of what I am going through. You know your body has something inside you, which your body is trying to work through. However, it is very strange to then wake up in the morning and realise you are able to function. When you have so many stories in your head of people’s experience's, it is really easy to then just project that on to your body. You are sick and people tell you what to expect when you are sick. You kind of trick your body into almost over playing it. I have been able to work for a few days this week, what has been a similar story is how little people think you are able to do.
What I have found different in my self to 5 years ago is my attitude. I think when I look back on my attitude, going through chemo at 21 I had a bloody resilience to pushing through it that meant I needed to know this wasn’t going to stop me. 5 years later, I think I have a greater appreciation about using the time I have to get myself right. Despite everything that was in front of me, I have often approached it in a stubborn way like when I went through Chemotherapy. 5 years ago my main focus was not falling behind my peer group on the hamster wheel that is life. I recognise now, I guess is this developed comfort level I have were I am at the moment. I know who I am professionally, I don’t need to seek the justification from others that I think I did 5 years ago.
3. You know their is an end point
The final thing which has a strange resonance to 5 year’s ago is time. You are told in both cases, that what you are going through when it begins that it hopefully does end. However you also know in the back of your head that what you shouldn’t try to do is get your hopes up to plan for when it does. Your world is still operating around you. Your friends are having birthdays, their are sporting games that you are missing. You dream in your head of what and when freedom will return(what ever that means will return). What I appreciated is also remembering, that it is okay to feel scared that plans do just have to stop. Again something I recognise as different in my own mental mind set. I think 5 years ago, is that I was aware of what I lost and how much just by being out for a few week people forget about you. I think 5 years on, I have a great sense I think of security in knowing what and who I am.
