How can surviving cancer teach us how to endure the discomfort of a common cold and vice versa? Sometimes an ordinary illness can teach us how to vent and exercise self-care beyond self-pity.
PUBLISHED April 17, 2019
Felicia Mitchell is a poet and writer who makes her home in southwestern Virginia, where she teaches at Emory & Henry College. She was diagnosed with Stage 2b HER2-positive breast cancer in 2010. Website: www.feliciamitchell.net
Recently while nursing a cold, I spent a lot of time contemplating how I endured cancer and cancer treatment without railing at the universe night and day. A psychologist might say my deference to an illness bigger than life itself was based in a fear of the fates, not just the fact that good cheer is healing. Another might say that the shock of it all silenced me. With a common cold, I wallowed so much in my misery that I came to wonder if I were making up for a lost opportunity to vent.
It all started with what I call the week of feeling pitiful, a week when I not only felt awful from head to toe but also told everybody within listening distance how pitiful I was, including my cat. I complained to the walls. A simple virus felt insurmountable, eliciting more self-pity than a diagnosis of invasive cancer, the complications of a lung collapse after port insertion, chemo and the first days of radiation therapy. I pondered how well I had coped during a serious illness as I blew my nose and shed more tears.
How could I have navigated a cancer journey with more grace than I was handling a common cold? Cancer is, obviously, bigger than a cold. With cancer, I went into crisis mode, which I am good at. My mind does mental triage as I design a coping strategy when something frightening triggers the fight or flight response. I know how to endure the unendurable. Perhaps it is because cancer made me feel strong and capable that this cold, by contrast, made me feel puny.
It all started with what I call the week of feeling pitiful, a week when I not only felt awful from head to toe but also told everybody within listening distance how pitiful I was, including my cat. I complained to the walls. A simple virus felt insurmountable, eliciting more self-pity than a diagnosis of invasive cancer, the complications of a lung collapse after port insertion, chemo and the first days of radiation therapy. I pondered how well I had coped during a serious illness as I blew my nose and shed more tears.
How could I have navigated a cancer journey with more grace than I was handling a common cold? Cancer is, obviously, bigger than a cold. With cancer, I went into crisis mode, which I am good at. My mind does mental triage as I design a coping strategy when something frightening triggers the fight or flight response. I know how to endure the unendurable. Perhaps it is because cancer made me feel strong and capable that this cold, by contrast, made me feel puny.
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