There are 2 things that I would like to discuss at this point. First, I have a colorful history of a psychotic fear of cancer. During the 80's and through much of the 90's, I must have spent thousands of dollars going to see multitudes of doctors over any type of abnormality I could find in or on my body. Why is there a lump on the right side and not one on the left? (I was a real stickler for physiological symmetry..) What is that sharp stinging pain in my side that never gets worse, but never goes away? Why am I peeing so much? Why have the glands in my neck felt swollen for a year and a half? Why am I running to the book store and pouring over medical books, desperately trying to diagnose what is wrong with me? (I REALLY think that is a terrible idea for people like me. If you can see a picture of it, you can now see a picture of it inside your own body...not good!)
This lead to some pretty unhappy moments that ran it's course through two marriages. It also, (fortunately), lead me to some very extensive psychotherapy with a great psychologist, and it also helped me find the best doctor on this planet for handling me. Both are women, (both retired now), but these people really stuck with me and were not afraid to bitch-slap me in my weakest and whiniest moments. Tough love was the prescription, and they were not afraid to dole it out.
I found out a lot about myself, and I don't think cancer itself is what I feared. I believe most of my agony was rooted in fear of separation, and stuff like that. This is stating it all very simply, but it's really about as far I want to go with it here.
But, man - all those doctors were bound to have given me some great quotes over the years!
"Mr. Ray - those are nice, rubbery testicles!"
"George.." (most of my doctors called me by my first name, I never thought that I would need to get on a nickname basis with them!)..."if you were having the symptoms of pancreatic cancer, there wouldn't be much we could do for you, anyway."
And my favorite: "George...I'm not God or anything, but I don't think you have cancer."
The second thing I'm a bit obsessed with is medical irony. Hate it. It can manifest itself in my thoughts on a daily basis. Weird...he was a vegetarian, who would have thought colon cancer would have done him in? He seems so energetic and funny, who would have thought he suffered from depression? He had such beautiful blue eyes, too bad he's missing most of the iris in his left one due to a street mugging!
And while I'm sure smoking and drinking may indeed contribute to prostate cancer (I assume - I also have a phobia about learning about things that are going wrong in my body!), I find it ironic that prostate cancer is the one I got.
But the ultimate irony (as pointed out by one of my sibs) is this: I have dreaded cancer all of my adult life and I have finally gotten it.
But it's one that ain't gonna kill me.
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3 comments:
plus! now you don't have to worry about *getting* it anymore!! :-)
Best wishes for a full recovery. Tonight at Safeway, I donated $1 to prostate cancer research in your honor.
They always ask for some optional donation at the checkout, and I always say "No, thank you", but tonight they asked if I wanted to donate one dollar to prostate cancer and I said "Absolutely!".
With a family history of various cancers, I know all about phobia of everything that isn't right with my body.
Thank you very much, Steve. That's awesome (not the phobia part..but the donation and best wishes) It's good to pay attention to our bodies, but not good to let it get the best of us!
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