What Others are Saying about
Kicking
Cancer’s Ass:
A Light-Hearted Guide to the Fight of Your Life
“At any stage in the journey that is
cancer; this book is invaluable for patient and caregiver
alike.”
—Sandi,
Princess Margaret Hospital Patient 2008
“Very thoughtful and humorous;
excellent work”
—Dr
Andrew Matthew, Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto
* * * * * *
Kicking Cancer’s Ass
A Light-Hearted Guide to the Fight of Your Life
By Robert Hawke
Copyright Robert Hawke 2011
Smashwords Edition
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
* * * * * *
Kicking Cancer’s Ass
A Light-Hearted Guide to the Fight of Your Life
By Robert Hawke
Act 1: Getting Ready
Chapter 1 — You’re Going to Get through This
Chapter 3 — Battening Down the Hatches
Act 2: Going Through it
Chapter 4 — Getting Yourself Educated
Chapter 6 — Prepping for Surgery or Treatment
Chapter 7 — My Hospital Experience
Act 3: Recovering
Chapter 8 — Recovery: When you First Get Home
Chapter 9 — Recovery: Further Down the Road
Chapter 10 — A Work In Progress
Chapter 11 — Rebuilding Your Life
Chapter 12 — Strategies for the Future
Chapter 13 — But I Thought I Was Done!
Act 4: For Caregivers
* * * * * *
Dedicated to all those who have the courage to get through this, but don’t know it yet.
There are so many generous people who have contributed to this book and my journey back to a healthy life. I would like to thank my remarkable Mom and Dad, my brothers Mark and Dave, the mighty Gord Oxley, Jane Luk, Louis Vitela, my awesome nephews, Sandi Sloan, Dr Kenneth Florence, Dr. Kate Hays, Dr. Jeremy Freeman, Dr. Paul Walfish, Dr Andrew Matthew, Michael Cohen, Nadine Cross, Gail Mitchell, Dr. Dante Morra, Ron Proulx, everyone at the Centre For Innovation in Complex Care, all of the stakeholders and team members of The Patient Empowerment Program, The Bad Dog Theatre Company, and Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto.
Special thanks to my wonderful wife Cindy Fajardo, for gently encouraging me every step of the way.
* * * * * *
Chapter 1: You’re Going to Get through This
In this chapter:
Hi, my name is Rob
You’re going to get
through this
The two big questions
We’re in this together
Hi,
I’m sorry you have to read this book. I know that it might seem a bit crazy for an author to say that, but I am sorry. You may have just received a diagnosis of cancer that came as a real shock or perhaps you’re a bit further down the road. Either way, my heart goes out to you in hopes that you will be healthy and happy again.
It wasn’t so long ago that I went on this journey they call “having cancer” as well. It took me completely by surprise and was not a pleasant experience but I am better now. And although I’m missing a gland that I didn’t even know existed, I am OK. In fact, I’m better than OK, I’m happy and well, and I certainly wish these things for you.
I hope that in this book, you will find some things that will make this path easier for you. When I was diagnosed, and in the days that followed, I was amazed at how little I knew about my own condition and how ill-prepared I was. I blundered through the experience the best I could but I really could have used some kind of guidebook that would help me through the experience. I remember being in my humble apartment a few days after surgery and thinking to myself “Someone has to tell people what this is like!” At that point, I realized that I was going to do my best to help folks going through this experience.
I hope this book lets you know that you are not alone. You might find yourself feeling isolated and be convinced that “no one can possibly know what this is like” or that you are “having a truly unique experience that no one can relate to.” I felt much the same way. However, there are literally thousands of us who are putting on a stiff upper lip and going on with the day while trying like hell to ignore that fact that we are staring down a diagnosis of the big “C”. With all of us going through such a common experience, it’s clear then that even though we may feel alone, we are connected with a great tide of humanity that is having a similar experience.
Just to let you know, I have a background in comedy; not surprisingly, one of my favourite coping mechanisms is humour. Throughout this book, I’ll use humour sporadically to get a point across or just to lighten things up a bit. I’m not doing this out of disrespect, in fact quite the opposite: I respect what you’re going through so much that I think you should use every tool you have to get through this, and that includes humour.
The medical odds are that you will survive this experience.
When I was first diagnosed, I felt like there were so many things I didn’t know, so many things I was scared of and so much in my life that was out of my control. I felt completely overwhelmed, but in time, I managed to get through my diagnosis, treatment and recovery. Obviously, I don’t know what the future holds for you, but I do know that we live in a time when there are more resources available for people like us than ever before. Once you are out the other side, you will still crave chocolate, you will still be yourself, you will still love and be loved.
This is one of life’s journeys, and a big one at that. This is not to be taken lightly like a trip to the corner store; it is, in fact, an epic trip that involves a great deal of change, and will require courage, faith, love and strength. Along the way you will probably experience laughter, tears, frustration, pain, relief and every other emotion that Meryl Streep goes through in a movie.
I am not pretending to have all the answers to your situation in this book. I am the first to admit that there are many things I don’t know; for instance, I am not a doctor and I don’t have any letters after my name, but I have lived through cancer at a young age (I keep telling myself 40 is still young. Please don’t tell me otherwise.) and shortly after that I was the primary caregiver for someone who was diagnosed with the disease. Many times I wished I had someone with me to tell me what was going on, to help me out and offer me advice when something came up, or just somebody who had gone through it who could give me a few pointers along the way. It is my hope that this book does that for you and that maybe in some small way, it makes your difficult trip easier.
“Cancer
is a word, not a sentence.”
—John
Diamond
Let’s Start at the End…
I was going to begin at the beginning, but you are living that right now, so for a second I’d like to jump to the end of the story, so you know how it finishes.
Imagine if you will a time in the future when you have your health back, when you feel good again, when you have adjusted to the changes in your life and have your feet planted firmly on the ground. A time after you have wrestled with experiences that most folks wouldn’t even begin to know how to deal with and you have emerged victorious. Now imagine that all the resources you need, all the love, support, education and terrific medical care will come your way. You may not be there yet, but you will be.
Many thousands of us survive cancer every single year. Often, we are stronger than we were, have more depth, more love, more appreciation, and more soul to our lives than we did before.
You might think I’m coming at this with blind optimism, saying, “Hey it’s all going to be great! Cancer is a walk in the park!” I’m not implying that at all. What I am saying is that each day of this journey, you will go a little further along the road to healing. I know that it seems trite to put it that way, but you will get through this. The old adage of a journey of a thousand miles beginning with a single step is certainly true here, and although you might feel pissed off, sad, hurt, or all of the above, it is right on schedule for what is expected of you right now.
There are many different forms of cancer and many varying degrees of sickness and health that go with it. With all these disparities in our collective experience, how can we help each other through this? Well, even though your body may be different than mine and our levels of health may be different, I also know that we are linked by this; we all go through similar experiences emotionally, socially and sometimes spiritually. It is in those experiences that we can share commonalities and learn from each other to make the road easier as we go.
“The
only courage that matters is the kind that gets you from one moment
to the next.”
—Mignon
McLaughlin
Cancer survival rates in virtually every country in the world are going up. At the same time the incidence rate of many kinds of cancer are going down. The stats are that roughly a third of the people in the industrialized world will deal with a diagnosis at some point in their lives. A third. That’s huge. Is this a reason to be hopeful? Sure. If a full third of the population will get this, there must be thousands upon thousands of examples of people living through this and getting on with their lives.
Medical treatments are getting better all the time. This disease was once considered a death sentence, and the word itself was barely whispered in public. These days, our ability to deal with cancer as a condition that we can treat effectively and proactively becomes stronger every day.
Where Will I Get the Resources?
Becoming healthy again will require that you use a lot of your internal resources. Your “muscles” of courage, determination and hope will certainly get a workout and of course you will also get help from family and friends as well. There are many around you right now who will be able to offer advice on a good doctor to see, an informative book to read or even a shoulder to cry on when things are tough. The point is, you probably have more resources right now than you think you have, and on the occasion when you feel like you are all used up, something just might magically appear to help you out. So, since the odds are that you are going to get through this and we know that there are many resources at your disposal, let’s get started…
The Two Big Questions
The two questions that really demanded an answer for me during this time were “Is this my fault” and “Why the hell did this happen to me?” Of all the questions that rolled through my head while I was pretending to work or trying to sleep, these two were the toughest for me to deal with. Let’s have a look at them now…
Question #1: Is this my fault?
There has been a great deal of discussion about the nature of reality itself and whether or not we create the circumstances of our lives through our thoughts and feelings. This belief in our responsibility for virtually everything that happens to us has grown ever more prevalent in the last couple of decades.
Some would have us believe that everything we experience is a result of our thought processes. Because I believed this to a degree and I had consciously manifested some circumstances in my life before, I felt really guilty after I got my diagnosis. My thought process went like this: “If I create everything in my life through my thoughts and feelings, then certainly, every aspect of my health is my responsibility also. And thus I clearly have given myself cancer in some way.”
So, not only did I have to deal with the diagnosis of a disease but I also felt remarkably guilty just for having it! Gosh, I must have been a really bad person to have created cancer for myself. Frankly, I don’t know if there is any validity to the belief that we create every aspect of our own reality or not, but there is hard medical research about what causes this disease, and that we can talk about.
So what do we know about what
actually causes cancer? The three major contributing factors are…
1:
Your genetic background.
2: Your environment.
3: Your
lifestyle.
You might notice that you have very little control over both your genetic background and to some degree, the environment you live in. Getting mad at yourself for any genetic tendency you might have to get a disease makes about as much sense as getting mad at yourself for the colour of your eyes or the fact that you might not be as tall as you’d like. We can’t help what we have in our genetic code. At this point in human experience it’s impossible for us to alter the DNA in every cell we have in order to not get a certain disease. We clearly aren’t responsible for the specific genetic pool in which we were born.
Now let’s talk about the environment. We need to remind ourselves that our world has become more chemically complex and polluted with each generation for hundreds of years now. In an urban environment, there are many chemicals in the air, water, and in the ground that we can do nothing about. In fact, artificial materials are so prevalent that we get excited when something is 100% natural! We live in a world where we are bombarded with radiation, radio waves, electrical currents and old Uncle Jim’s off-colour jokes. So, it’s not surprising if we have health issues when the vast majority of us live in an environment that at best could be called “less than ideal.” Why do I bring all this up? Because…
It’s not your fault.
I am all for us taking responsibility for our lives but there are some things we just don’t control. Yes, there are lifestyle choices that have a profound affect on whether or not we are healthy or sick. Things like quitting smoking, having a healthy diet full of greens, and getting exercise all reduce the chances that we will have major health issues in our lives, but some of the causes are just beyond are control. So, if you’re feeling guilty or responsible, let yourself off the hook. It’s alright. As Robin Williams said to Matt Damon in Good Will Hunting, “It’s not your fault.”
Question #2: Why the hell did this happen to me?
I don’t know. I have no idea why this disease came into your life and I have no idea why it came into mine. I have thought about this for a long time and not only can I not give you a definitive answer, it is unlikely that anyone else can either. Sure, people may talk about likelihoods and percentages, but a definite cause may prove illusive. This drove me a bit crazy for a while because I really wanted to look at some aspect of my life and say ‘Hey, this is the thing that caused my cancer!” but I did not have that experience at all. In fact, not one of my medical professionals even attempted to tell me what had caused my sickness. I really wanted to know what I’d eaten, smelled, or bathed in that had given me the disease. Some of the things I had wondered about were too much TV, too much cereal and even fabric made in China. If any of these things caused cancer, then a lot of the folks I hung out with would have had the disease. I drove myself crazy with this for a while until I finally just accepted that I might never know why.
In this situation, it’s common for us to want to lay blame, point a finger or kick the crap out of whatever did this to us. More often than not we are left with vague conjecture, like “Hey it runs in your family and you use plastic wrap,” which does not offer much in the way of closure, to say the least.
So who do we blame? I was really angry at myself for a long time, thinking I had done something wrong. Folks even told me that maybe I got cancer because I am naturally enthusiastic and emotionally intense (which is, of course, ridiculous). Many times we have to come to terms with the fact that we will never truly know why and how we came to deal with this. It can be like wondering why a tornado randomly smashed your house to bits but left your neighbor’s place pristine and beautiful, with the happy dog still tied to the picket fence. At these times of loss, we look to different explanations for comfort and solace: “It was God’s will”, “It’s all part of a plan”, “This is just random stuff that happens on occasion”, or even ‘I am paying back Karma for stealing a chocolate bar when I was eight.
I don’t know which of these answers, if any, is correct, but I do know that we as humans feel there has to be a reason for things. However intelligent we are, though, occasionally there are some things we just don’t know. And not knowing makes us want to reach up to the sky and yell “Tell me what I did! Tell me who to blame! Tell me what I did to deserve this!” We wait for a response…and sometimes, there is no answer, which can be the cruelest answer of all. In fact, occasionally I still wrestle with this myself at 3 AM. There are many of us who have asked the same thing in the dark of night. You are not alone in your alone-ness. Thousands of us are together in this, doing our best to muddle through each step of the way. Those of us who have already gone through the experience once asked the same questions you are and now we’re rebuilding our lives. We wish the same thing for you. So let’s get to it.
* * * * * *
In this chapter:
A shock to the system
Get ready to notice
the “Big C”
Let it out!
The Fight or Flight response
Three
strategies for the early days
How to tell people
Getting the News
You may have received word of your condition face to face in your doctor’s office or you may have gotten the news over the phone. Either way, I’m guessing it came as a surprise. Very few people expect to be told they have cancer and it can come as a real shock to your system. People often talk about how when they hear news that is really impactful, that the world kind of spins or looks a bit different. This was how it was for me. I wasn’t told outright that I had the disease but all of a sudden the percentage chance of me having a malignancy went from forty to eighty percent. I walked out of the doctor’s office onto College St., managed to buy a coffee, and sat there stunned for a while. I mean cancer? Come on! What are the odds of that? I knew at that moment that the world was going to be different for me.
After I sat stupefied for a while, the news sunk in a bit and I got myself home. As the days went by, something kind of strange happened: I noticed that the word cancer was virtually everywhere. It got kind of ridiculous for a while. Allow me to illustrate this with a sketch:
You’re sitting on your couch on a relaxing Tuesday evening, watching a rather dramatic ballgame on TV. It’s gone into extra innings, the crowd is hushed and you are completely mesmerized by the action.
TV Commentator #1:
Well now
Fernandez is coming to bat. He steps into the batters box and the
first pitch goes by. It’s a strike!
TV Commentator #2:
You know Bob,
Fernandez hasn’t been doing so well this year. His Batting Average
is down from .303 to .186!
TV Commentator #1:
Here’s
another pitch. It’s a swing and a miss. Oh and he’s struck out!
TV Commentator #2:
He sure did
Bob. These Milwaukee pitchers are giving him so much trouble they’re
almost like a cancer
to him.
You grimace and change the channel. Over to Fox News, where someone is flogging a book entitled Why Liberals Suck.
Sanctimonious Host:
So you’re
saying that there is something inherently wrong with Liberals.
Book Flogger:
Isn’t it obvious
Marvin? I mean they are practically a cancer
on the beautiful pure flesh of the thyroid of our nation.
You switch channels again. This time to an infomercial. What’s safer than an infomercial? You settle back into your couch and watch as two genetically perfect people who have been surgically altered to smile constantly hold some strange object up for the camera.
Ted:
You know Mary Anne, I can’t
imagine anything better than making my own homemade Turnip Relishes.
With Ted and Mary Anne’s patented Turnip Relish Maker!
Mary Anne:
You’re right Ted!
You’d have to be a moron not to love it!
Ted:
Right, or you’d have to
have cancer!
Mary Anne:
Yes, you’re right
Ted. You’d have to have cancer!
Ted:
Yup. Cancer. Cancer Cancer
Cancer!
Mary Anne:
Let’s make out Ted.
Ted:
I’d love to Mary Anne.
They make out. You pick up the television and hurl it out of your third-storey window killing several harmless squirrels in the process.
OK, I may be exaggerating a little, but it really is fascinating how much the concept of “cancer” is used as a metaphor for the evils of virtually anything in our society. I’ve heard it used as a comparison to political parties, white collar crime, and yes, even popular sports teams. After receiving your diagnosis, you might be remarkably sensitive to it for a while. It may piss you off, sadden you or (if you have a very different psyche than I do) it might not affect you at all. You might be having a perfectly acceptable day when BAM! Someone will just come up and mention how the current bus drivers’ strike is a malignancy on the skin of our fair city. There’s not much you can do about it except let it roll off your back as quickly as possible and get on with your day. You might even want to count them up and then say “Hmm. Only four absolutely misplaced cancer references today. Not bad!”
“The
world is round and the place which may seem like the end may also be
the beginning.”
—Ivy
Baker Priest
You’re Not Going to Be Yourself
A while ago I had a phone conversation with someone who had just found out that she had a malignancy. When she got the news that there was a “little bit of cancer” in her thyroid, she was a bit upset but not that concerned. She went through the next few days and worked like crazy on a number of different projects. A while later, it sunk in. She was doing dishes and cleaning up her apartment when suddenly she burst into tears and couldn’t stop crying. Often we hear the news on an intellectual level at a doctor’s office or over the phone and feel like we can deal with it very well. We might look “remarkably strong” to everyone and appear to be “bearing up well under the circumstances” but no matter how strong we appear, eventually, this news affects us on a deep psychological and even physical level. You might cry uncontrollably or find yourself in a rage or somewhere in between. The level of intensity the first time you connect with your emotions about this can be a little frightening in itself. Thoughts like “I’m not like this” or “I don’t cry like this” are very common while you’re having an emotional release. The first time you really feel it might be when you’re awake at three in the morning, or home by yourself, or with someone you trust. Heck, it might even happen while you’re at the bank machine (if so, people will probably let you go to the front of the line).
The Dam Might Burst
“Grief
is itself a medicine”
—William
Cowper Charity
A huge emotional release that involves tears or anger is perfectly normal right now. In fact, if you aren’t ridiculously upset about this at some point, you’d really have something to worry about. Let yourself rage and cry and allow these feelings to flow and get them out of your system. Holding them in (from my experience) can really be detrimental to yourself and those around you.
The one thing to remember even while you’re doing this is to keep yourself out of harm’s way. Make sure you’re in a safe environment and if you’re not, go somewhere you know you’ll be OK and cry your eyes out.
A Very Healthy Kick in the Stomach
Early in the process for me I was referred to Dr. Andrew Matthew. When I first walked into his office and sat down across from him, I wasn’t taking the whole thing seriously. I didn’t really have cancer at that point, it was just a probability, and besides I was one “Healthy Young Man” and it didn’t make sense at all that I would have this strange disease that I figured only smokers and old people who lived next to bauxite mines suffered from. Since I had only lived next to a bauxite mine for a few months, and drank green tea on a regular basis, I thought I was completely in the clear. I walked into Dr. Andrew’s office cocky as hell, and sat down.
He looked at me and said very calmly,
“So Rob, have you dealt with the fact that this might kill you?”
Wow. What a kick in the pants that was. He didn’t mince words; he
just let me have it right between the eyes. I was remarkably shocked
and muttered something about the fact that it was wasn’t a sure
thing yet. He assured me that, psychologically, it didn’t matter.
He told me that I was in fight or flight mode already and that I was
going to be going through some pretty tough stuff for a while.
- - - Sidebar! - - -
What
is the Fight or Flight Response?
The fight or
flight response goes back an awfully long way in our evolutionary
history and we inherited it from our ancestors. When I say ancestors
I’m not talking about your great grandfather who made the best
moonshine in five counties. No, I’m talking about our common
ancestors who were actual reptiles millions and millions of years
ago. Fight or flight is a part of our DNA. It is in what is referred
to as the reptilian part of our brain and is so embedded in our
genetic code that there is no getting rid of it. When we perceive a
deadly threat that is external to us, we have one of two immediate
instinctive responses. We either get rid of the threat by attacking
it or by putting some ground between it and us. This has served us
very well over many millennia and subsequently, we have been able to
procreate, develop opposable thumbs, and eventually create and watch
reality television.
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