10 am this time. My chemo friend is 10.30 am so I’m looking forward to speaking to her as we both sit in the unit having poison pumped into us. She really has made my chemo experience more palatable. I’ll always be grateful to her for this.
The journey to chemo is never nice. 35 minutes of small talk and me trying to have an internal dialogue with my anxiety. It goes along these lines:-
- You know what to expect – you’ll be fine
- Don’t let others see you are struggling with this – children and older people go through this – get a grip
- You are one cycle closer than you were
- It’s saving your life – welcome it in!
- You don’t have to go in today. You could take your chances and look for alternative ways of healing yourself
- Let your husband drop you off then sit for an hour and pretend you have been in. (Remember to run to Boots round the corner and buy a bandage to cover your hand)
It’s on a loop – some fade in and out, others are on full volume. But I am anxious. I do feel scared and I don’t want to go in.
But, I bounce out the car, not looking behind and walk into the hospital. each step towards reception of the unit disables my ability to think naturally and panic creeps in. I feel afraid, agitated and cannot think clearly. My breathing quickens up and I start to feel hot.
In a fog of haze I smile at the receptionist as she takes my temperature. I’m stood on the scales, I go to the toilet, and then begin another walk down the corridor to the double doors of the chemo unit.
It’s during these short moments, the positive self-talk kicks in. I have no idea how. I did not make a conscious decision to re-address the negative cancer chatter I was emerged in. But it came through and it got me to pull one of those handles of the double doors open and stride in with confidence with my little bit of paper in my hand with all the information they’ve gathered scrawled on it.
Self talk is your internal dialogue. be aware of it. I work with this in therapy with my clients, encouraging them to become aware of the influences of their subconscious mind and how it reveals its thoughts, beliefs, questions and ideas.
It presents itself in two ways – positive and negative. When it is positive you will feel good about yourself and what you have going on in your life. Think about it as having an optimistic voice or ‘self’ in your head. It’s not about narcissism, or deceiving yourself into thinking things are inaccurate or that you are fooling yourself. It is much more about being self compassionate. It’s about opening your personal perspective and increasing your understanding for who you are, what you need and what you have been through. Positive self talk seeks to bring the positive out of the negative.
I may have mentioned your ‘self concept’ – a term Carl Roger’s used to describe a collection of beliefs we have constructed to refer to how we think about, evaluate or perceive ourselves. This term embodies the answer to ‘Who am I?
So – from me to you – ‘Who are you?’ Have you ever thought about this question? Maybe given too much space to this question? How do you define who you are? Are you caring, kind, mean, selfish, thoughtful, scared, generous, loyal or shy?
My role as a counsellor is to gain a personal understanding of my own self concept in order to be fully with the client in the here and now. I have spent many many hours developing a solid self-concept – to lessen the incongruence and any distortions that have arisen from my past and other people’s positive regard placed on me. The arrival of cancer has challenged my self concept and my ability to remain optimistic. My negative self talk promotes a cycle of self fulfilling prophesies and prevents me from seeing reality – or the bright side of what I am facing. Recently I have felt at danger of getting stuck in this cyclone of sadness.
But I can change the way I talk to myself. As you can. The first step is recognizing the negativity – then you are step toward changing it.
Look for your triggers. Cancer has given me many including dying, lack of control and uncertainty.
Think about yours. By re-framing your reactions, you can start to put distance between you and your negative thinking. Standing back allows space in and it’s that space hope can be found. When you’ve got hope you’ve got a chance to challenge your thinking. When you can challenge – only then will you change.
The unit is full today. I have never seen it like this. COVID is no longer playing hard ball here and today I get to witness what ‘normal’ looks like in such an abnormal environment. Dozens of people hooked up to machines having varying kinds of treatment pumped in to kill/treat various forms of cancer and it’s cousins. We are tantamount to each other.
There is one chair left and it’s the one with the leg rest elevated. I try to place myself as elegantly as I can in to it. Fail! All eyes on me as I awkwardly try to get the chair to go back to it’s original shape (A bit like why I am here really – ironic – to get back into my original shape!). It doesn’t work! I’m stuck, legs up in mid air, uncomfortable, waiting for help! Which eventually arrives, but even the nurse cannot get it to work, so I am stuck in a position I do not like. It emphasis (to me) that I am ‘ill’ – I feel like I am in a hospital bed.
Then my chemo friend bounces in – pulls a stool up next to me – she’s early and she is waiting for a chair too. They call her by her first name – this is round#6 for her. I wistfully think about being in her shoes in three cycles time. She’ll be done by then and I will have two cycles left.
Thank God two chairs become available together, so I jump off my makeshift bed, I grab my cup of tea, jug of water, pillow, hot water bottle in a pillowcase (warms up the veins), and hike over to the other side of the unit. Phew.
I have already told you how valuable it is to talk and share your feelings. So I get so much from hearing another’s chemo story and of course life stories. Today I get both and I happily share too. It really does make time go faster and the treatment less daunting.
I’m also chatting to the nurse administrating the big plastic syringes of chemo into my hand. She’s lovely – I’d like her again. She was interested in what I did for a living and I came alive (as I always do) when I engage in interactive communication about counselling.
I was chatting to my chemo friend well after my treatment had finished. Wigs – periods – hot flushes – wig glue – bloated chemo bellies – all topics I am becoming increasingly versed in.
I can safely say I left in a better mood than I arrived.
Home once more and I can feel the chemicals slopping around in my blood stream. It coats every vein and vessel. Tinkling the ivories of my skeleton as it makes it’s way to the unhealthy, unwanted and fast growing cells to do it’s work. Sadly it takes out the healthy ones too. How fab would it be if the chemo just knew the naughty ones and by-passed the good ones? My God. I love the thought of that – and who knows? Maybe in my children’s lifetime that will actually be the case?
I sit and wait for the side effects. Sadly they join the party at 16:30 pm. I remain on the sofa until 21:30 pm where I decide to stop fighting them and give in. I feel sickly, hot, cold, and just shitty. Not off the scale – but bad enough to want to sleep them away and forget about the day.