Cancer sucks. (Trigger warning ⚠️)
For a very long time I was unsure if I should post this article. This blog focuses on web development and I include it in my resume. Talking about health problems isn't going to land me any jobs. But it's also my personal site. The domain is my name. And now It's becoming quite clear that the job I have now is the last one I'll ever have.
So here we go.
Hurt has become my resident Earworm for the past few months. I learned it on the piano, I sing it under the shower. I can relate to both Reznors and Cash's version. My own interpretation of the song falls somewhere in between. Both Reznors self-loathing and Cash's regret resonate within me.
I do need to make some text changes, though. Not that it matters for the song itself, because I'm not singing (I'm a miserable singer), it's about intention. I have to make it my own.
I got my cancer diagnosis two years ago. Every step of my journey since then sucked. It's been a battle of attrition, and right now it looks like it'll be terminal. I don't know how much longer I get to live, or how the end will look like, but I do know that the disease will win eventually.
I hurt myself today
The cancer is what kills me, but the therapy is what I struggle with. I don't feel my tumors (at least how they're right now), but radiotherapy, operations and chemotherapy hurt. For each step, I have to bring up the courage to make myself miserable out of free will.
I'm on my fourth attempt of chemotherapy, the longest continuous one yet, coming up to half a year now. The assumption is that it kills the cancer cells faster than the healthy ones. Each infusion takes 72 hours and puts me into heavy fatigue while it's dripping.
The needle tears a hole
The old familiar sting
Tries to kill it all away
Fatigue sucks. The best I can describe it as is being exhausted from being exhausted. It accumulates with all other side effects.
It prevents me from helping around the household, from attending appointments, from anything and everything, that doesn't involve staying in bed and feeling miserable.
What have I become
Is a question I ask myself routinely. There's always something wrong, always some weird side effect, some infection, some exhaustion. My hair is gone. I can neither ride a bike anymore, nor lift anything heavier than a few kilos. I will never pick up my kids again. I can watch my body fail in real time. I experience a type of body dysphoria. The mental image of myself is still the same from before the diagnosis, before the operations and treatments. This is what connects me to the rage and anger in the Nine Inch Nails version of the song. I cannot and will not accept my new limitations. To keep fighting against the tumors also means to keep raging against myself.
Everything I know
Goes away in the end
And this is where I take my own, personal turn on the lyrics. It's neither a farewell nor regret - it's lament.
And you can have it all
My empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurt
The toll my illness takes on the people closest to me is tremendous. I'm not able to participate in life the way I used to, or want to. It's been a steady decline, resulting in how I hate how I can't support my family in lots of ways anymore. Each new symptom doesn't only strain my body, but everyone around me as well, which in turn I blame myself for. A Downward Spiral, if you will.
I wear this crown of thorns
Upon my liar's chair
Full of broken thoughts
I cannot repair
My fatigue, dysphoria and physical symptoms come with mental decline. While taking my infusions every two weeks, I can't even concentrate on a podcast or a movie, let alone writing or programming. Sometimes my memory fails and I misremember things I said. I bide my time in bed and wait for the immediate side effects to wane.
The chemotherapy doesn't reduce the cancer, it merely stabilizes it, prevents it from growing faster and larger, at least for now. It will stay with me for the rest of my time and so will the fatigue.
Beneath the stains of time
The feelings disappear
I am someone else
You are still right here
I am definitely not right here anymore, but everyone else is. I am changing, disappearing, becoming invisible to some and pitiful to others. How they react to sad fates has not changed. They would always look away, express helpless empathy, reiterate phrases and prejudice, maybe even spread awareness or donate money to the cause. The only thing new about it is my perspective on it all.
And this is where it ends. My take on Hurt is not a farewell letter, I am not at that point yet.
I know there are a few lines left.
If I could start again
A million miles away
I would keep myself
I would find a way
I can't interpret them, make them mine. For all the mental health problems I have, blaming the cancer on my past habits is not one of them. I couldn't have done a lot different. I guess that perspective is my silver lining.