Send Me More Stories About Cancer
My body has always seemingly hated me.
I could eat salad after salad, but the minute I ate a slice of pizza or pie, I’d gain five pounds, or so it seemed. I’d watch girls far skinnier than I was eat fast-food every day for lunch, their bodies never changing, never expanding, and I’d curse my body. Why did it hate me?
In college, when acne should have been a worry of the past, I’d still often see a red bump forming on my face. I washed my face every day and every night to rid it of excess oil, but more often than not, my skin would still raise to an irritated point right on my cheek or just above my lip, obvious to any onlooker, even when caked with foundation.
It felt personal. Like my body was trying to humiliate me. Like it was out to get me.
It felt personal. Like my body was trying to humiliate me. Like it was out to get me.
Then, at 33, a 4-pound tumor was removed from my abdomen: cancer.
I asked my oncologist if there was something I did that caused the tumor, something I should change about my lifestyle in the future. But he shook his head and answered that sometimes these things just happen.
There. Proof. It didn’t matter how good I treated my body, how healthy I regularly strived to be. I had always respected my body, and this was the thanks that I got.
Of course, I know that my body has no will, no agency. It doesn’t hold grudges or give blessings. It’s a machine. My heart pumps blood, my stomach acid breaks down my food, my lungs expand and contract repeatedly and rhythmically. Every part of my body has a job to do… a job it was built to do. It does that job, and only that job, over and over and over again.
All machines glitch. Computers need to be rebooted. Gears grind down. Debris catches where it shouldn’t.
My body glitched. One cell didn’t mutate in its expected way. And that set off a chain reaction that eventually grew something that didn’t belong.
I always thought it was so unfair that my body was a closed system, that I couldn’t see inside it. So often, when I had a cold or bad allergies, I wished I could just vacuum out the phlegm and snot so I could feel better; no, instead I had to wait for my body to work it out. And my body did not seem all that efficient at it. When I worked on the assembly line of a transmission plant one summer, if something got stuck in a machine, I would get a broomstick and dislodge it. Why couldn’t I do that with my body? How nice it would have been if, like an industrial printer, my body had an error screen that told me exactly what door to open to clear out the jam.
I wanted to know what it was that caused that glitch, and caused the tumor to form. I wanted to make sure this couldn’t happen to me again
I wanted to know what it was that caused that glitch, and caused the tumor to form. I wanted to make sure this couldn’t happen to me again. But there was no way to know. There was no error screen, no way to watch my cells mutate. I had to just let my body continue to run and hope for the best.
Logically, I understood all that. Emotionally, I didn’t understand it all.
Although I always blamed my body for my physical shortcomings, I still felt it was part of my whole, like it made up a portion of who I was. Yes, I thought my body hated me, but I always wondered why. Weren’t we supposed to work together? Weren’t we supposed to be a team? If my body wasn’t who I was, what was? My brain?
No, not my brain either. My brain hated me as well.
I was prone to sadness and anxiety my entire childhood, but I blamed my alcoholic father and my dysfunctional family. Then I chalked it up to adolescent drama and hormones. And then in college, I assumed it was uncertainty of the future. Once I had a career, I’d be happier. Maybe even a husband would do it. Some stability would certainly end this long stretch of mental turmoil.
I found a good husband and a reliable job. We bought a house and went on vacations. We were successful adults. And yet, the sadness, the anxiety remained.
I had done everything I could to give my brain a break, allow it to rest easy, to stop worrying, to stop wanting. And still it tortured me.
I sought out a therapist. I saw her for two years. I listened to her lessons. I focused on what I could control. I tried to be mindful. I participated in endorphin-boosting activities. And yet, the sadness, the anxiety remained.
Like the tumor that had grown on my ovary, the only fix seemed to be medical intervention. A doctor had had to remove my tumor. A doctor would have to remove my sadness.
I was referred to a psychiatrist who explained to me that antidepressants would help my neurons talk to each other better. “Imagine you’re in a canoe,” she said, “and you’re trying to get to the other side of the river, but you don’t have a paddle. Medication can serve as the paddle. It’s a tool that makes the journey more achievable.”
My brain was part of my body, just another organ doing its job, only with one major glitch.
I didn’t know why my neurons weren’t talking to each other or why my boat didn’t have oars. I would have to accept that was just the way my brain was made. My brain was part of my body, just another organ doing its job, only with one major glitch.
For a while after I started taking Prozac, I still hoped that I could fix myself if I tried hard enough, that medication was just a tool to help me get there. One day, my body wouldn’t grow things that didn’t belong, and my brain wouldn’t sabotage my happiness, and I could trust both of them. We could be the team I had always wanted us to be.
But when I tried to wean myself off Prozac, the sadness and anxiety came rushing back. My neurons hadn’t learned to talk to each other. My brain would never do what I wanted it to do on its own. Prozac would be my reality and my future.
I can’t trust my body or my brain, but I no longer think they are out to get me. They are just machines, and like machines, sometimes they glitch.
