Everything’s Coming Up Roses!

I speak literally. After Michelle trimmed back the rose bush outside our house a couple months ago — hard, I must say, hard enough for the kids to be mad at her for “killing” it — roses are now popping up like tulips in the Dutch springtime. At one point I counted 29 rosebuds on our single modest shrub. A small thrill, this explosion of blossoms, every time we walk in from the outdoors.

Those are the literal roses in my life right now. Figurative roses? HAH! I’m growing thorns, lots and lots of thorns. Allow me to fulfill the etcher of tablets that resides within me, and list the latest ones:

April 26: dry mouth finally kicks in with a real punch; I’ve been sticking xylitol melts onto my molars every 8 hours ever since.

May 2: a weird mix of gum/tongue inflammation (annoying) and occasional searing neuropathic pains in those same places (attention-getting) kicks up, for which nothing seems to help. Try cold milk or cream, once the soothing mainstays of my comfort foods? My tongue tingles and goes numb. The baking soda/salt mix that soothed my mucositis for so many months? Burning pain. Even water starts the burn. I admit - I did not see that one coming 3 months after treatment ended! Thankfully, unpalatable blendings of scrambled eggs, sweet potato, bone broth, cooked greens, and heavy cream don’t burn; they’re just… unpalatable.

May 3: my TMJ dysfunction hits DEFCON 1, and I can no longer squeeze any food between my teeth (and literally can barely pop an Advil through the one spot just inside my pre-molars where they can fit) — smoothie time! (Despite forcing myself to down 4 or 5 500+ calorie smoothies every day, I’ve given back 5 pounds from my 142# post-treatment apex, an all time low since early high school days.) My speech is barely intelligible. My youngest serves as interpreter at the dinner table.

May 5: that fatigue I’ve largely been avoiding decides to introduce itself, pointedly, and I am spending more time on the couch in a typical day than I would in a typical prior year, and feel so rubber-legged that the thought of walking up and down our driveway strikes me as “too much.” Michelle found this article, suggesting that perhaps a mainland trip kicked off with a red-eye flight and involving some modest hikes and lots of bocce while sipping vodka buried in enormous amounts of heavy cream might not have been the best idea exactly 3 months after wrapping up treatment:

That was a new one on me. Perhaps I was a little over-confident in my very acceptable energy levels up to this point. I’m not anymore.

The net effect of all this misery has me pretty down. I’m hoping I hit bottom the other day. I was, of course, lying on the couch, bemoaning the cruel fates assailing me, and feeling quite hopeless. I reflected on the sinking depths of my spirits, my lack of interest in doing the things I normally love to do, the slow speed I was moving through space (what I call “psychomotor retardation” in my depressed patients). That brought me some focus: I was flirting with depression!

This realization got my attention. I cannot control my physical ailments; they’re making my life unpleasant at the moment, and no one’s bodywork, prescriptions, or helpful suggestions have done much to help thus far. I’m not happy with this state of being, but there is good reason to hope my ills should diminish with time. But my mind? The thought of losing control over my mental well-being terrifies me.

Anyone who has lived with depression knows: almost nothing is worse. Without the ability to enjoy life, the act of living flattens to a dismal line. I don’t think most people can “control” their depression, or will their way out of it, but this felt like an unforced error given my inborn tendency to be happy. I believe I was dragging myself into a depressed state by focusing so wholly on my maladies.

This led to another realization, one that might say more about my insecurities than anything else. How much more of my whining, wincing, “woe is me” lumbering about could the people in my life bear and still want to be with me? I felt incredibly grateful for the decades of goodwill I had built up with many of my friends and patients, by being a (mostly) caring, curious, and positive presence in their lives. And I wondered: “how fast will I burn through it?”

I don’t have a graph for that process.

I do know that, despite the protests I can imagine from all the wonderful people in my life — “we’ll always be there for you, Buzz, no matter how pathetic you are” — there comes a point where a fundamental shift takes place. The old equilibrium of give-and-take we all need to find in our healthy relationships yields to a new balance, one in which I take, they give. The thought pained me, lying there on the couch.

So, I did what I could: I gave myself a pep talk. Reminded myself of all the emotional and material luxuries I can access in my life to grind through a time like this. Committed to at least try to maintain a positive mindset, no matter how compromised my body. That’s the part I can control.

The reaction I often hear from my patients when they read about my ongoing struggles is, “I really don’t want to bother you with my own concerns!”

No, no, no, no! One thing is crystal clear to me through this process: being needed, having the opportunity to give, is critically important to my sense of well-being. My mouth hurts and my jaw is locked whether I am lying on the couch or working.

Productivity — and I now understand that term to include watching my daughters teach themselves new moves on the trapeze, as well as helping a patient trouble-shoot their latest medical dilemma — is at the core of my personal identity. Someday I might fill my life with meditation retreats and I’ll look back and laugh that I cared so much about staying busy, doing things, solving problems. Right now, though, I feel best when I am participating in others’ lives. That’s the choice I want to keep making, rather than simmering privately in my own despair.

I can say this: I’ve been pruned back. Hard. Hard enough, at times, to feel like this treatment is set to kill me.

I don’t think it will, though, or at least not for a long while. I can see the benefits to a good, hard pruning. Regular watering, and a bit of fertilizer — which frankly has been in abundant metaphorical supply of late — and one of these days a few rose buds might pop up.

I wait patiently for these signs of summer to arrive.