The morning is the most difficult time of day.
The morning is when I wake gripped with fear, my heart seized with terror at the thought of waking up, getting out of bed, living through the day.
It’s hard to describe the fear to those who haven’t lived it. If you haven’t lived it, I don’t know how you could possibly imagine it. So don’t comfort me, don’t tell me it’s going to be okay, don’t give me advice.
The fear happens after something terrible happens to you when it’s not supposed to. I was about to graduate residency, about to start a promising career, in a great (so I thought) relationship that was supposed to lead to marriage and children.
Now I wake up and I feel afraid because I know how unsure my footing really is, how anything can be taken away, how nothing is secure. I feel afraid because I feel sick, and I feel pain, and I don’t know how much more I can stand before my spirit is broken.
I’m near the end of my intensive chemotherapy (and possibly past the end if I decide not to continue with the last round), but with that relief comes the fear—with the end the fear rises—because now what is there to think about besides how horrible this thing is that’s happened to me? Now I supposedly start the process of healing, but the fear tells me there’s nothing left inside of me to heal.
The fear is like a thick fog that has settled on my chest, heaving and heavy, like a dull weight on my soul.
I know someday the fog will lift, but when it does there will be a different woman underneath, because this woman will know what it feels like to have been broken.
Elana, I’m speechless, as I don’t know of a ‘right thing to say’. So I am just sending you a big virtual hug, and my very best wishes that the darkness will lift soon. Still rooting for you!
Sincerely and wholeheartedly,
Marlene E.
I don’t know how it feels because I didn’t live it. Absolutely true. I did watch my husband live through small cell lung cancer. Radiation and chemo, then partial lobectomy. That journey started eight years ago, and praise God he is still cancer free. I watched the fear take him over. He seemed vacant at times, yet I know he was petrified. I remember the mornings, when he would lie in bed, holding my hand, perfectly still with fear. I don’t know how that felt, but I’ll never forget what it looked like, or how helpless I felt in its presence.
He still has fear today. Not as large, but its there. Cancer joins us for dinner every night. I can ignore it some of the time now, but he can’t. And he is changed because of that.
Elana,
My thoughts are with you. Though I, and so many, can’t truly understand your personal, day to day, moment to moment feelings, may you find some comfort in the idea that suffering and despair are universal and so is that god-awful feeling of being afraid and alone. You’re honesty and willingness to be vulnerable is what the world needs from you. Thank you for offering it.
I can’t begin to tell you how this story touched me. You are a beautiful and gifted writer. I feel honored to peek inside your heart for a moment, and digest the honesty you lay out. I think you are stunningly gorgeous, and when 1 in 7 of us are being diagnosed, this epidemic needs real voices like yours to give birth to light and dark.You are an inspiration.
I wanted to leave my web address also, if you were interested.
Elana,
After graduating residency and finishing fellowship, I too wonder what has become of me. The hobbies I once had – the passion for singing, theater and music…my crafty tendencies, my poetic voice – they’re all gone…forgotten and left behind on a back burner so long while I chased a career I believed I wanted. Don’t get me wrong. I love my job – I love being an anesthesiologist. But the only time I feel like myself is when I’m at work. And that’s utterly exhausting to be on your feet, running around during a 10-12 hour day – problem solving in perioperative medicine for a myriad of patients. I was diagnosed with GAD back in medical school. I had my first persistent (10 days) physical manifestation of that anxiety when I started my transition from fellowship to “responsible attending” back in the ORs I haven’t seen in over a year. I woke up with absolute dread in the morning. It felt like my chest was tight and my heart palpitated, but my pulse and BP were normal. I was on edge constantly…the slightest stress drove me near tears. I desperately wanted my body to behave like the logical brain I had going on upstairs. But my body was yielding to the pressure. It’s nothing compared to a trauma…but you are an inspiration – you strive for a work-life balance. You stress that. You believe in that. You are a survivor. You remind me that I should fight to find some form of normalcy. Elana, I pray for you and I know your future has brightness beyond imagining. It is a certainty – although I’m an outsider to this situation – I feel it, I know it. Take care.
Dear Jeni,
how honestly you have written the above. Thank you, also to you, for charing it. You are an inspiration too! Just felt like writing it – also because i can relate so much to your words.
Maybe unusual, but Elana will understand, that this goes to you!
Love
B.
Elana,
You are right. Without knowing gripping fear it’s impossible to completely understand how it feels. Your fear is your experience, not mine or anyone else’s.
I just hear it’s there and hope the life and spark inside of your brings you to a place of feeling whole again.
Sharing your experience as been a gift to me. I deeply love my partner and her suffering and fear because of her own treatments is always palpable.
Thank you for the bottom of my heart.
I appreciate you allowing us into your world with all the layers of ego, persona and roles peeled away. I am terrified with/for you. I am also sitting with my best friend, who has been going through a parallel journey, and your words give image to what she is so often feeling…..to feel/witness the dissolution of everything you know. My respect to you…human to human, and much love…so much love.
Holy Cat, Elana! This is one powerful and brutally honest post. Thank you for continuing to share your journey.
Cheryl
Darling girl, you will be different. You can’t go through this and remain unchanged. Don’t fear the new you. Embrace her and encourage her. You are destined for great things for having survived this tragedy. Just give yourself time to figure out what that might be. Don’t rush it. It will find you. God bless you. You are loved.
I am 30 years your senior and I am in the health care field [Nurse practitioner married to a psychiatrist]. We live in a culture that has a “projection” on our lives. When we *experience* REAL life with a Cancer diagnosis, life no longer makes sense… all we know is confusion. I “get” this because I have spent many years on the “front-line”… I call the patient with their cancer diagnosis. If we have not experienced it we don’t really “know”… life is upside down… Holding you in the Light [I am Quaker… my way of Love]
I hear you Elana. Every freaking thing in your whole life all went wrong at the very time you should have had it all go right. You have endured it bravely and have carried your spirit through a horrendous assault on your body. I want you to know I respect our sadness, because I have been there myself. In a place where there is no color, only shades of blackness. The only good thing I can say about it is that it is time limited. The wheel eventually turns, however slowly. I have watched the one who worked so hard to make my cancer vaccine, die of pancreatic cancer herself. She asked me not to grieve, it was okay. She continued in her work for her patients, and I realized not one of us has the power or control. We can only just BE. So, my sister, just BE until it changes. You are still alive and feeling well enough to reach out. That is a sign for me that you will emerge from where you are, but for now, I will just send healing vibes and breath with you.
This is REAL. Thank you for posting your REAL. Sending light…
I love you, Elana, for your strength, for your honesty, for your kindness, for being part of us. There is no beginning and no end of mind. Fear is not made of anything, it has no location, no color, size or shape. It is like waves on the ocean. May love visit you instead of fear every morning.
Oh Elana. I don’t pretend to understand your fear or pain but it’s so visceral through your words and I truly feel for you. The uncertainty of life is terrifying and the fear is ever present for me too. Sending you warmth and light from sunny Australia x
I would never tell you it will be all right. I would never tell you to just buck up. I will tell you that I am thinking of you and beaming you gentle peaceful thoughts. I wish I could do more. But I am here to listen. And I have learned much from your postings. Love and peace to you.
Barb in Minnesota
I wouldn’t give you advice even if I had some to give. I don’t know what it all means, but I do know that I’m more aware of the meaning of my life because it has been touched by you. Sending you love, and a wish for peaceful mornings.
I have been following your writing, your story, for a bit now and am struck, again, by your raw honesty and strength. I do not have cancer and cannot possibly know what it’s like for you, but I am the mother of a nearly twenty year old daughter who has suffered from refractory epilepsy her entire life. She is severely disabled as a result, and despite the twenty years of experience, there are some things that I have never “grown used to,” and that’s the fear of which you speak – the unsure footing, the “before life” and the “after life” and their seeming irreconcilable differences. There are days when I am consumed by that fear and then there are those days where I know that I am where I am supposed to be, that I am capable of enormous strength and resilience. I will hope for your strength and resilience to be renewed, for your fears to be eased and for your continued strength and courage.
You are still living in the past, I don’t know how you are going to do it but you need to live in fully in the present each day. Easy, no. That’s why you’re still here, time to figure it out kiddo. Put on the big girl pants, you’re here, you breathe you can enjoy what you you have which is a lot more than a lot of people have or you can continue down the path of woe is me. Your choice, as it has always been. Time to really take charge, you can do it IF you let yourself. Again, your choice only so make one and get it going please. I will not be feeling sorry for you and you shouldn’t either.
I would maybe like to stab you in the eyeball.
Me too J9! screw you Sue- you have no idea of how bad she feels.
The past? Why do people think that one simply gets a “little chemo” or “a bit of radiation” and everything is all better? That is *not* how it works.
This isn’t her past. It is ever present! The possibility of a return of cancer, or even another cancer–or other complications resulting from treatment that can take years to develop–is very real.
Ask me how I know. I’m on my third type of cancer now. You don’t just end treatment and walk away like nothing’s happened, or as though it won’t come back or nothing else could ever happen.
I can only assume Sue has never had to walk a path similar to Elana’s. I wonder if she did if she would do it as gracefully and honestly as Elana has?
Elana, so much of what you write has already been written in my own heart. Somehow you are able to verbalize truth with grace and dignity. Sending you warm thoughts.
“Sue”, I could not help interpreting your assessment and advice as bereft of compassion and empathy. If what you wrote is actually how you feel, I do not share your point of view.
If you intended to persuade Elana to count her blessings, be more optimistic, and take charge of her life… next time have someone edit your stuff before publishing.
If you intended to use this opportunity to stir up anger and call attention to yourself by acting ignorant and mean, please stop.
Fear is what drove the “historical” Buddah towards enlightenment. I’m not sure if that helps at all, but you’re not alone… we are all connected by the things we share, including our fears.
I bow to your courage and I pray you find peace. Thank you for sharing your hard earned wisdom.
Thank you for your honesty, Elana. You inspire so many with your words.
Book recommendation: “I Am That” by Nisargadatta Maharaj. It might bring you some peace.
https://www.amazon.com/I-Am-That-Nisargadatta-Maharaj/dp/0893860468
Thinking of you. <3
“The fear happens after something terrible happens to you when it’s not supposed to.”
I too wake in the early hours with my heart pounding gripped in fear. My mind racing — and I wish that it would stop and let me sleep some more. I have been experiencing something sudden and life changing too — both physical and spiritual. I pray that both of us pass through this period — and we find peace. I understand your feelings. Thank you for writing this. It is very meaningful to me. Peace.
I love you Elana Miller. I love you from that place that loves someone who understands what its like to be that afraid and sad and broken. The one who feels cheated of the life we had before-before cancer came into it- appreciates you. Its the same piece of me that hates so fiercely the lost innocence – I just wanted you to know that Im totally blown away with your words and how on target you are. prayers for you- that this chemo time ends soon and you are feeling better. you have been and are amazing.
Thank you for being so honest and sharing your soul. You will be an amazing psychiatrist if and when you decide to continue on that journey (coming from 25+ years in psychiatry)! As it is now– you are a fearful AND an amazing person.
Elana, I would like to mail you my recently published book “Lord I’m Not Done Yet: A Believer’s Guide to Accepting, Living, and Dying With Cancer” please email your address and I will get it out asap. I would be willing to visit you as well. I have much to offer as you face this disease.
Totally understand. I haven’t experienced cancer but, I will say, I know what it is to experience being broken. Only the humble can survive it. I’m pulling for you, me, and all the broken ones around us. We can be repaired to some degree but cracks and scars will remain forevermore.
Thank you for sharing your powerful story. I read every blog and have never commented, but I just wanted to relay my appreciation and support to you, from one survivor to another, from one human to another. Every story is different and every life is precious, and I hope caregivers and others are learning from you, as I am.
P.S. I am not the Sue that talked about living in the present (I will change my name here to Sue M.) Sending warm wishes to Elana.
Thank you for your honesty, and your vulnerability. You are so very courageous. You will never ever be the same woman that you were prior to this; you will only be more knowledgeable, intuitive, loving, experienced, loved, and brave.
Dear Elena,
I found your website before you became ill and I have been reading your posts since then.
I think everybody finds out that everything can change in a split second somehow one way or another in life. We learn from those changes. Thank you for putting your picture. You are always beautiful.
I will pray for you. Prayers are going to keep you strong and well.
Looking forward to your future posts.
<3
Elana, my heart goes out to you. I lived thru cancer with my teenage son. Now 7 years later, after 3 recurrences treated in the conventional way, he is now fine after following the ‘alternative’ path to get healthy. I urge you to register right away (it is free right now) to see this series which is currently on day 3 of 11: thetruthaboutcancer.com
and buy the movie here: theconnection.tv
These are excellent explanations of everything my son did to get well and I can attest that it worked for him after many surgeries and various lengthy and difficult courses of chemo, and then it was back again and they said there is nothing else to do. He is now in college living a normal life and following a healthy lifestyle. I wish you full health and a fulfilled life. Namaste
And once the storm is over you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, in fact, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm you won’t be the same person who walked in.” ~ Haruki Murakami
((((((((((((((((Elana))))))))))) Sending you healing Hawaiian mana. Stay strong sistah!!
Yes, I too hsve been utterly taken down to dust and you nailed it, the gnawing grinding fear. It sucks the breath right out of you. One day at a tome is too overwhelming when trying to just get through the next 60 minutes seems like it will sap the last of your reserves. Yes, I really get it and it does get better, but not right away. Just keep breathing and let time work its magic like it does. The minutes will turn into days, then weeks and months and one day you’ll feel lighter and realize you made it by just breathing. Huge virtual hugs and real time prayers.
Elana, you wrote,
“I’m near the end of my intensive chemotherapy (and possibly past the end if I decide not to continue with the last round), but with that relief comes the fear—”
The decision not to continue seems to be the hard part because then you’ll feel better and grieve the loss. The fog will lift and there will be sadness and joy just like before only you will feel better. I hope you go for it.
Dear Elana,
I am a broken woman too, full of fear as well. And no matter what the reason, when you feel like this you cannot just “put on your big girl pants” and go on with your life. Sometimes you hide it so well, even to the ones you love the most, because you think it will break their heart, or because you’re afraid… that when they finally realize how you are not this strong hopefull and joyfull person they always thought you were, suddenly nobody’s left, or they “don’t understand why ?”, and they give you pieces of advice such as “It will pass… maybe you will have your period… you have every thing to be happy… com’on pick yourself up…”. Like you said, when someone hasn’t been broken, they just cannot understand, and some who have, still think that THEY only have the right to be and minimize your pain because it’s not “the same as they lived”. Guess what, pain is pain, fear is fear and when you’re broken, you cannot just pick up the pieces and glue them back on and just be the same as before.
Thank you Elana for so eloquently expressing your fear in all its desperation and darkness. When I was in my 20’s and my mum was very sick with lupus I tried to cheer her up and to stay positive. Many years later that is one of the biggest regrets of my life. I wish I’d be brave enough to acknowledge her fear and go there with her so she didn’t feel so alone. But I was young then. Wishing you all the best.
Elena,
Your post really hit home. I am a three time survivor of cancer, breast, thyroid, and liver. (yes that’s 3 primary cancers!). I have had countless tests and treatments, the latest being whipple surgery and chemo. I am 5 years past the liver cancer and I can totally relate to your post.
I can speak for myself when I say that the fear never goes away, but it does get easier. During my treatments I felt like the earth was never solid under my feet. That feeling lasted through liver biopsies, questionable MRIs that turned out to be nothing, and many doctors’ appointments.
I have learned over time to not judge my feelings and just be in the moment, even when I didn’t want to be.
I wish the best for you and that you know that you are saying the words and expressing the feelings of so many in your blog.
-Randi-
Thank you for sharing so honestly. I think of you daily, and lift you up in my prayers.
While I do not have cancer, I do have medical problems that have left me with fear beyond my own belief of capability. Thank you for sharing your fear so vividly.
Wishing you love, light, and healing.
If there is fear, let me then send you love and warmth, allow me to feel present at your side with my soul next time you feel that way. Il n’y a rien qui dure toujours. Even fear.
please don’t die.please.
Thank you for sharing. I woke up to the fear again this morning. This post helped me cry for what is lost and not blame myself for my weakness.
Please know you are in my prayers. I responded at first from a sad, self absorbed place and wish I didn’t. Thank you for the perspective you provide.
Thank you for speaking “our” truth for so many. As the mother of a pediatric cancer patient I struggle with terrible trauma from the ordeal. My 15 year old son seems to have bounced back in the way that only children can. I however sometimes feel irredeemably broken. I am slowly finding my way. Slowly. We have been following your journey since it so closely mirrors our own. Love and light to you.
If you are up for some reading this book helped me with fear. “The Places That Scare You” by Pema Chodron. Try and get the actual book and skip the audiobook thing on this one, its easier to underline things in actual type since you may want to go back to them here and there.
p.s. Things won’t always be like this.
Warmly…
Your friend,
Britt
Elana = Endurance: One more round of chemo, one more sip of water, one more morning. Just one step at a time – and then another one. You are still inside Elena and you will return. When the future looks back on the treatments for cancer today (because they are treating you too…) they will a liken them to medieval tortures. But luckily the people that you have looking after you are probably mostly angels.
Holding you in my thoughts and prayers.
Sweetie,
Sending you a gentle hug. I am a year out from my treatment – just passed my scans…no new “stuff”. I understand so well you fears. Mine hit at night when I am trying to rest. My body and mind are so wiped out, but I can not relax and let go. It is a struggle to find my “new Normal”. It get a little easier night by night, but I am taking a sleep aid in order to shut my brain off.
I think the fear is always going to be lurking for me. I said to a friend recently, and she was shocked, ” We all die a little every day. I know pretty well what is going to get me, other than a bus. My new normal is slowly being revealed to me. I wish sometimes that I could “just know” all that was going to be. I am learning that I can not jump to the end of my story book. I have to read each chapter as it comes. Patience with my body, and mind and spirit is a hard talent to develop.
Thank you again for your writings. You have a beautiful soul.
Peace be with you – a little more each day.
Tina G
No advice here, just a verification that trauma — going through something awful that you never expected to happen to you — changes you.
I went through a divorce some years ago that I never expected, that pretty much tore me apart. While I’m mostly back on my feet and have a pretty okay life, I still live with the knowledge that making yourself vulnerable can result in horrific pain; I’ve had a few relationships since, but can’t get to anything deep. I live with the constant knowledge, verified by experience, that anything can be taken away from anyone in a moment.
Maybe this can serve as a cautionary tale for you — to lead a full life, you have to try to address this fear. I don’t know how, probably therapy. But without working against it, it can leave you much less than what you were, and unable to get what you really want from life.
love to you Elena.
I know true fear within illness. I lost all I thought I have. But mostly my self. And then I found my self. Oh so different then anything i had ever imagined to be me. Only stronger better with compassion n empathy. To me. To others. To the universe.
There is indeed so much to heal.
So much of you. Its not gone. You are not gone. You are here now. Being a new you. You will recover with self care, nutrition, rest, mindfullness, faith, yoga (kundalini that is:) ) doing what you are best in and love doing. You gave me and many others so much. Now give yourself. Don’t think. Don’t calculate. Your mind does it any way. Just breathe. You are here now.
hope u had all the courage u need to stay alive n happy ! anyway have u ever think about cannabis oil treatment to take care your body from the cancer cell?i heard they are works quiet amazingly to those whose already try them,,tons of love from Indonesia only for u elana! get well soon !
I feel like you’re writing my story. I eventually did cut the last treatment myself. I’ve always described that “fear” as a loss of childhood innocence, since I was 20 at diagnosis. No longer can I hide behind statistics, thinking, “it won’t happen to me”, because it definitely did. That feeling still follows me around some eight years later. It affects my choices in a myriad of different ways. I hope you find a way to embrace and accept it, because I’m not sure it’s something that ever goes away entirely.
Hang in there, sweet virtual friend. I have never seen you look and sound so forlorn and dejected. Somehow, sometime you will get your chutzpah back. In hindsight, this will be a horrific pause in your life story. You have to get beyond the now to get to your auspicious future. P.S. I humbly again suggest: Please get a dog (or two) so you can feel their deep love. Take it easy on yourself, Melanie
Elena,
I know only too well this all-encompassing fear you’re experiencing. I went through this when my young son finished his treatment for neuroblastoma. The fear was indescribable. You have no solid footing to rely on, no past to connect to because life as you now know it is like nothing you’ve ever known, and the future is so vast and foreign that to even try and imagine what it might be is impossible.
Sixteen years later, and I still live this, as my now teenaged son continues to have health problems and cancer scares. Not only that, but I find that I can talk about it because I feel that by doing so I’ll jinx things.
Just know, my sweet friend, that you are far from alone. We’re all here for you, and we’re all here to tell you your feelings are “normal” in this very personal world that only we understand.
xo
“gripping fear” as you described combined with such loss/grief (of your pre-diagnosis “self”) is what I am hearing from your amazingly descriptive and moving post. Your talk (the webinair) gave to me a solid construct of how experiencing these can lead to acceptance – a better place. I think the biggest fear may be that one can’t go where they must to survive these emotions (?). I can’t imagine having the energy to do so myself, I must say in full disclosure.
Viktor Frankl’s short book (treatise?) “Man’s Search for Meaning” (based on his experience in a concentration camp in WWII) offered me some pearls regarding suffering and life. Frankly (no pun intended), I’m not sure I’d recommend it as it’s not “light”. I just happen to know for myself, sometimes reading hard things is easier when I’m in a hard place. You probably are familiar with the work already from your medical training.
This is all just to say that even if fear is a crisis in faith about getting through the day, other people have faith in you, and faith to spare. I know you asked us not to say what to do, etc., but i can’t help but offer, “borrow some”. Don’t feel that it has to be known to you, or felt by you; I think it’s ok to “fake it ’till you make it” sometimes. I think the modern wording is “lean in”. Maybe it’s ok not be sure, to feel it ALL, and just delegate the part about having strength to get through it and greet your changed person with a welcome to others – – because we would welcome feeling leaned on.
wishing you ease – deb
hello Elana, I hold your words in my heart. Sending you love. I’m a pediatrician,; we’ve had a family tragedy, but your words ring true…”how unsure my footing really is, how anything can be taken away, how nothing is secure…” It has changed me, life is different. My feet are firmly planted now though. One step at a time. Sending love. Sending love.
“The morning is the most difficult time of day.
The morning is when I wake gripped with fear, my heart seized with terror at the thought of waking up, getting out of bed, living through the day.”
Cried when I read this. I came by your site by pure accident. I lived this hell as well many years ago. Some how I chose to keep getting up. It was a one minute at at a time. One breath at a time. Pure Hell.
I copied this and taped it next to my bed:
Do not go gentle into that good night
Dylan Thomas, 1914 – 1953
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
I made it. I hope you do to. I hold your hand across this space.
Peace
Pat
Hi Elana, I wanted to let you know that Pema Chodron will be on Super Soul Sunday with Oprah. She seems like such a wise woman – maybe you have read her books? The topic is fear, and how it brings you closer to the truth. She says that fear is nothing to be afraid of. I hope you can watch on Sunday. I will be watching and sending lots of healing thoughts and love your way. Jen
Thanks Elana. I read your piece about fear the night before my chemo treatment. I am being treated for Stage 4 Ovarian CA. I am in my first recurrence. It is a time full of fear. I am not you, and it sounds like so much was taken from you so quickly. A traumatic event, on top of having the cancer itself. There is so much I could say, but I will be brief. The words you wrote touched me deeply two nights ago. It gave me permission to admit that I am full of fear and that to my family and friends this time around, I “put a face on” quite a bit. I am not saying that I don’t share my deepest fears at times, but this time around, the treatment isn’t as vigorous and I have my hair back. It is funny how that makes me look and feel better. I can pass, and also I think people
forget that I have stage 4 cancer because I look so good. It is all very strange, and sad. Thank you for speaking up about the dark side of cancer. It is scary, and it is sad, and all that you lost is not
fucking fair. It really isn’t. I agree with a past responder that the fact that you have written about your fear means that you still have the zest of life to put things out there. That is so important. Keep putting these out there. I take life one baby step at a time, and that is how I will keep balanced as I go. I am also well medicated, I am a clinical social worker, and have a therapist, psychiatrist, etc. etc. and I am better with the help of both meds and talk therapy.
Thank you again for spelling out your fear. I send a virtual hug to a fellow traveler and another woman who has lost a lot, but is still here to give and receive what I can.
Thank you for giving a voice to your true and real emotion. I am a warrior and I will tell you that Adversity doesn’t change us, it Reveals who we are. Continue to embrace this vulnerable part of you as you will continue to draw your strength from your beautiful soul.
I am living the same thing but with a different cancer. I finished treatments for Hodgkin lymphoma this summer. Trying to get back to work full time but it is still a struggle and people at work think that since treatments are over I should be back to my old self. Well I am not nor will I ever be. A new me has been born and I even started my Masters in Prof Counseling with hopefully an emphasis on ONC Counseling. Funny, I told someone at work today that I got nauseous out of the blue and that I just am not the same person I was…. Stay true to yourself and always try to trust God has a grand plan for you ( :
My dear Elana,
Please try Gerson Therapy – Charlotte Gerson on Curing Cancer: https://youtu.be/quuvi6Gvvmc
I have proof that work . I am sure that will restore your health.
Sending love.
I know how you feel! I don’t say that to make you feel better because I know it doesn’t. I just say it because it’s true. When I got sick over a year ago, there were many nights I went to sleep not knowing if I would wake up. But I did, and eventually they found out what was wrong, and eventually it was treated, and although I took some damage, I’ve recovered enough to live again.
I will never be the same person after this experience. Some things are lost, somethings are gained.
You are not broken, you have just lost your way. You will find it again!
I’m not going to give you advice. I just want to tell you what I’ve learned through my own traumatic psychological experiences. I’ve learned that trauma changes us indefinitely. The experiences which resulted in that trauma remain with us, as do the memories; as the trauma becomes a permanent part of us, it is impossible to return to who we were “before.”
But we can get better. We can become happy again. We cannot be the people we were before, but we can be different people who still know happiness and perhaps cherish it all the more for the adversity that we have seen.
I hope that you can begin again. I hope that you can become new.
Your bravery is astounding!
Hi again Elana * My son had A.L.L. Years ago & was on a similar protocol as yours & it was TOUGH, but he made it & now is Loving his Wonderful Life, and you will 2, I advocate for the last round of chemo, as if you finish the protocol, you will feel much better about doing all you can to eradicate the beast….when he was dx he was given a 60% chance of surviving & well now he is thriving, a little periphal neuropathy, (sp) but Just enyoying his life, & making his Mom, Happy,
Namaste’
Love & Big Warm Healing {{{{HUGS}}}}
from your cyber friend , Deb in Mo.
Wow, no advice, no simple words of wisdom, no words at all, just thank you for sharing. You are such a blessing to so many. Hold that near to you, that you are in a place of darkness yet you provide so much light to those around you, may that fact bring you some light. God Bless.
and my thought on Sue’s insensitive post: maybe she was just trying to piss you off – anger being a catalyst to action…that’s the only thing I can figure for such insensitivity.
yep.
warmly, marcy
https://livinglydying.com/
Feel the fear, feel the pain and the anguish. And, I wish for you to also be able to feel the love. I read all these comments and there is so much love here. You are surrounded with love. Your journey has inspired people who have never met you. I pray that your healing comes quickly.
Is it possible that you are experiencing clinical anxiety/depression that could be ameliorated by medications? You’ve been through a huge amount, more than enough to bring on symptoms in anyone. It might just benefit you to see a psychiatrist of your own. No one should have to suffer debilitating fear.
Dear Elana, I am sorry to read this and sad you are in such a dark place right now.
I know something of that cancer fear. It is hardest after treatment than during it ( no point in sugar coating that); you can’t truly deal with the emotional and psychological damage and healing until you are through the physical treatment. That fear is awful and very very lonely because no matter how many others have faced it, this is your own personal hell right now. Confronting your mortality at this young age is terrifying (I am a bit older than you but still too young to have had the innocence and confidence in my body ripped away from me). I can tell you it will get better. You will pick up the pieces, even if they aren’t put back together in the same way anymore. I am back to “sweaing the small stuff” after promising myself I wouldn’t. I’d say I’m pretty much normal now and I honestly didn’t think it was possible (I am three years out). If I can recover my sanity and make the journey back I am sure you can because I wasn’t the cheery “brave” cancer patient but dark and moody much of the time. Yes I still fear cancer recurring, but it has lessened. Tests and scans will bring back the trauma but they have to be endured. And they also pass too.
You have had a major trauma. PTS disorder is a commonly acknowledged problem now in studies of cancer “survivorship”. Seek help/counselling if you need it. Reach out.
A virtual hug from the UK
Elana,
You speak of fear. In your lines it is almost tangible. I also want to mention alot of courage coming through as well. Embracing your fear, sharing it with us and the world, you are pausing in it not fleeing to some falsety. I admire that about you. Look at how many lives you’ve touched! This is true Zen Psychiatry or just Zen Psych.
I am a psychiaric resident many miles away across the ocean. Sending you hugs!
Dear Elana,
I felt such sadness and recognition, when I read this blog 2 weeks ago. I enjoy receiving your blog and like the whole idea of Zen Psychiatry very much!
I wanted to jump in there straight away and post my thoughts but was too worried it would come out as advice. You posted it on the day of my last chemo.
Instead I included you in my metta meditation every day since.
I am twenty years older than you, married (struggling very much for the last 2 years) and have a beautiful daughter of thirteen who had a very rare skin cancer, just before I was diagnosed with breast cancer in March. I had a mastectomy and lymph clearance on the right. I wasn’t interested in a reconstruction. The chemo was Fec-T for me, and while I breezed through the first 3, didn’t care about being bald and wear no wig, the taxol made my Fibromyalgia so much worse, it was hard to keep going back, because of the incredible pain.
My fear time is in the night. I wake up every 1-2 hours on a bad night and on a good night I make three hours at a stretch. The night sweats are partly to blame, I think, but also the taxol. So when I wake up wet and freezing, I try to keep my mind from running away with catastrophising. I am relieved when the day starts and I want to get up to make breakfast for my daughter, even if I go straight back to bed after she has left the house.
I work as a therapist with children and young people and their families, which I love, and will go back to this. At the moment I’m full of doubt about me having anything left to give to those people. I see on a day to day basis how little I have left to give to family and friends.
We do an activity with children who feel low, where we make a bowl from clay. The bottom of the bowl is painted with gold and glitter and represents the light inside them. Then we make little clay balls, which represent the “shit” that can cover up the light. So, no matter if the bottom can’t be seen, the light is still there. I try to remember that for myself. They can use it to communicate with the people around them. And a family member or friend could ask, what they could do, for the child to be able to maybe take one ball out.
Your light is still on, different shade maybe.
In September my oldest friend died, a widow, with a nine year old son who looked after her aged parents. My father was taken in to hospital with heart problems for the first time after 44 years (accident in which my mum and grandma died during a Sunday family outing, another story). He’s ok now.
I thought: how much more? I immediately grasped the opportunity to blame myself for having cancer and for his granddaughter having cancer and causing him so much stress.
I took that to meditation. “I can’t go on, I go on.” To quote Beckett.
My hope rose as soon as I had my last chemo behind me. Despite everything. I was amazed how much. I’m still scared about the stretch ahead, but I also have hope.
I started to use the awake times at night to watch Buddhist talks on You Tube, I am too woozy to read usually, over tired and not just because I take Temazepam every 2-3 nights in a vain attempt to get better sleep. Pema Chödrön is one of my favourites ( another person recommended one of her books above) because of her great sense of humour. Just seeing her face makes me feel better and less desperate.
I can meditate more regularly now and it has a different quality .
I started doing things that I enjoyed when I was younger, knitting, baking bread and cakes, and going round the house looking for “unfinished business”.
It’s as if I was paralysed before, and spent my time watching TV and playing solitaire on the computer
(still do that but not as much).
Now I’ve signed up for a course with a cancer charity, which is designed to help people pick up their lives after treatment, which starts some time after the radio therapy.
My family, friends and colleagues have been incredible, even though I feel I have a problem relating to them sometimes, even the cancer veterans, because I’m transforming and don’t quite know, yet, who I am going to be in the future.
Long post.
This really is still advice, wrapped up in part of my story, isn’t it?
I watched your talk again, about love and healing, and thought that you know everything you need to know, already. You sum it up very well in that talk. Maybe it’s just that now you’re in the process of understanding it on a deeper level. We’re very resilient.
I wish you all good things and will continue to include you in my metta meditation, hoping that some of it may reach you.
Thank you for you, sharing, and just saying it as it is.
Hi Elana,
You have been very silent since you last update. How are you feeling? I was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s disease earlier this year and I understand how you feel. Please post another message so we know you’re ok. You give me inspiration. I pray all is well with you.
Sincerely,
Tierra
“I know someday the fog will lift, but when it does there will be a different woman underneath, because this woman will know what it feels like to have been broken.”
This will be your tremendous gift to give others once you are healed.
Thank you for sharing your beautiful soul.
You are perfect and whole.
As someone who has been through cancer, lymphoma actually, and two and a half years of treatment… I can say that I understand that fear and emptiness. When the intensive chemo ends (and then again when the maintenance part ends), it’s like “what now”. It is it’s own battle. Things don’t just go back to normal.
I was also a healthcare provider and I used to tell myself that this whole experience will make me a better provider for my patients. I still believe that, although I ended up quitting my job because I am still not in a place where I’m physically or mentally able to return.
I’m thinking that this new version of myself needs a fresh start. I’ll still be in health care. I think the only way that I can possibly make sense of what I’ve gone through is to help other people.
Dearest Elana, all these weeks without any news from you I have been thinking about you a lot: wondering how you are doing, how you are going through these terrible moments you are experiencing, how is your morale, if the fear offered you some relief at last.
I send you all my thoughts. It won’t help you much but this morning, when my yoga teacher suggested that we dedicate our practice today to some extraordinary woman in our life, I chose to dedicate it to YOU. Because you are an amazing person, so resilient, so courageous, so generous despite the turmoil you are going through.
Yes, I do think a lot about you and will go on this way, hoping to get some better news from you soon.
Take care my dear.
Hélène from Switzerland
yes dear girl, where are you????
I hope you are relaxing, breathing, losing yourself in some wonderful music
free from pain and the ickiness of chemotherapy
sitting somewhere with a cup of tea
writing your next blog, thinking of what to say
yes, your road has been horrendously rocky and full of holes
but it is not your true path, just a detour you stumbled upon
just breath, and say, I am………….
Missing your writing, hoping you are well, all the best dear Elana.
Nadia.
Hi Elana.
I just wanted to say that you are on my mind.
Cheryl
Oh Elaaaaaaana,
Come out, come out wherever you are! I just looked at my calendar and it’s been five weeks since your adoring fans and well-wishers (including me) have heard from you! I don’t mean to be nosy, but what did you decide about the last round of chemotherapy? I’m wondering about your health and happiness. I hope you’re feeling much better. All the best to you, brave lady.
Take care,
Melanie
Elane, I am thinking of you.
I’m sorry, I typo-ed your name! Elana, I am thinking of you.
Hi again Elana & Your Fans / Friends are wishing for a word from you, we miss U terribly, Saying Lots of Healing Prayers & Warm wishes, just know we Love you,
Namaste’
>^..^<