A brief health update; I survived my two and a half weeks inpatient stay for my stem cell transplant at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. No major side effects besides loss of hair, vomiting and muscle atrophy. Now almost two months out of the hospital I am doing very well. I am unemployed, but since I am not collecting unemployment and increasing the nation’s official unemployment rate, I do not believe my employment status will negatively impact President Obama’s chances of reelection. Still no hair, but my strength and stamina have returned and I am busy in my routine of shuttling kids to activities, cooking meals, exercising and cleaning the bathrooms (have to earn my keep somehow).
A few people have questioned me about my dearth of new blog entries. Most notably my massage therapist Maryann at Orthomed Massage in Northborough MA. Orthomed Massage is by far the best place for a therapeutic message in New England, I highly recommend Maryann if you ever decide to run a marathon when you are 40 years old or just pull a muscle lifting that heavy box with your back not your legs. (I promised Maryann a gratuitous shout out if I ever posted a new blog entry).
I am a private person; there are very few people I will talk to about myself and how I am truly feeling. I like being in my shell not sharing how I feel with most people. In my profession as a mental health/substance abuse therapist my job is to get other people to talk about themselves while hardly sharing anything about myself. This suits me perfectly. When I began cancer treatment I had to start sharing personal information with my clients and coworkers about my health due to my loss of hair and my absences from work. I found it incredibly uncomfortable to have to talk about myself to clients and found myself in a great deal of discomfort when people would inquire about my health and how I was doing. For the most part, smiling and saying I was doing fine was enough.
For some strange reason this self described private person felt the need to start a blog after I was diagnosed with cancer. While writing this blog I have shared in a very public manner how I am feeling and how I am coping with the changes that have occurred in my life because of my cancer diagnosis. I have enjoyed the writing process, but the actual sharing of my blog entries has made me uncomfortable. After writing and posting many of my blog entries I would later read them over and feel anxious that I just shared personal information with the world. I was torn between discomfort about posting blogs while at the same time checking the number of site visits at my blog home page to see if anyone was actually reading my blog
When I was diagnosed with cancer and was feeling depressed many people encouraged me to attend therapy. Being the good therapist that I am, I refused to see a therapist. How was talking to someone going to help me? (I recognize the staggering the irony of this last sentence). I think sharing my thoughts and feelings with the world, at least the very thin slice of the world that read my blog entries, was my way of engaging in therapy.
I am feeling better now; I still have treatment ahead of me, but for the time being I think I am through the worst of it. I have decided to stop mental health therapy through blog entries (based on the few entries I have posted over the past six months I made this decision a while ago, but now I am ending the pretense that I am a "blogger"). I am riding my bike, lifting weights, walking a lot and plan to hike up Mount Washington while on vacation in New Hampshire
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There is one last thing I need to share. I need to let everyone know how much I love, and how important my wife Elyse is to me. I would not have made it through the last ten months of diagnosis and treatment without her support and kindness. Elyse is truly my better half. She has all of the patience that I lack and she cares more about my health and taking care of my health than I have at times. She has put up with all my crazy mood swings, some from the cancer treatment, and some from me just being me. I am grateful that such a wonderful, caring and level headed person could find it in her heart to put up with me and love me as much as she does. I also hope that she doesn't mind that I spent the afternoon writing this blog entry instead of cleaning the bathrooms as I told her I would today.
Time to go back into my shell.
Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to read my blog posts and offered kind words of feedback on my writing and support during my treatment.
May I make a public blog statement for the record?
ReplyDeleteAnyone who knows Jeremy knows he IS a fantastic listener!
But, Grasshopper ;) Sometimes just listening is only half of a meaningful exchange.
Even if you have decided to return to your shell for now, I love that in this experience and it's challenge, it has allowed you, the therapist, to access the risk of being truthfully HEARD.
Your poignant writing skills and hilarious nature have had much to offer those that care about you. I say sometimes, because I've shared this personal experience, 'When someone who is close to you is healing from cancer; We all are healing from cancer.'
Your public blogging, perhaps to your surprise, has been as therapeutic for you as it has been for your audience. In particularly, the humor to remind us that Jeremy's still there!
Lastly, you remember what it was like some time ago at the beginning of this journey? As you know, there are thousands of people who are receiving this diagnosis as we speak. People who are going through the gathering of as much information online as possible, as you did.
Hopefully, in good mental health therapist fashion, they will be graced to find your words and full circle will emerge. Here, is a story about what surviving looks like!
Happy to hear your feeling better.
Be well,
Maryann
Orthomed Massage Clinic
dear jeremy.
ReplyDeletehaving just stmbled onto your blog, i am moved to extend to you something that several people have wished for me. i was a hospice nurse for nearly 30 years and absolutely loved my work. then my husband, hugh, was dx/d with multiple myeloma - he was simply putting something in the front seat of our car when suddenly he heard a loud cracking sound and collapsed to the pavement; it was his femur, snapping in half. his femur was re-built, but it failed, and had to be done all over. he has been through tandem SCT's with good results, and is in CR. all through the nearly 3 years of his treatment, i was his caregiver - we're married nearly 45 years, and are still ga-ga for each other, so i was honored to be at his side every step of the way. in december, 2011, i was dx'd with ST IV metastatic breast ca, then a few days later with insulin dependent diabetes. here is the wish that someone so kindly and generously wished for me 1st as a cg, then as a cancer patient: "may all the loving and compassionate care you gave to so many as a hospice nurse comes back to you many thousands-folds over." every day, i think of those words, and every day i realize the wish has come true, and continues to manifest itself with so much love, blessings, care, kindness, and help for both hugh and for me. we are both in a good place with his CR holding strong, and next week, the last phase of my treatment with chemo, surgery, and now radiation will be done. though we both have what they say is incurable cancer, i don't think about "what they say" too much. we are living our life re-invented, filled with a profound appreciation of what a full, well-lived life really means. so, jeremy, let me pass on that same wish to you, and to your darling elyse; that all the loving and compassionate care you gave to so many others in your career as a mental health subtance abuse therapist comes back to you many thousands-folds over. be comfortable in your own skin - or shell, if you like! - and keep blogging about your journey, which provides so much hope and inspiration to so many people. i look forward to your future entries and am so glad i found you.
karen sutherland
Hi,
ReplyDeleteI have a quick question about your blog, would you mind emailing me when you get a chance?
Thanks,
Cameron
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