Out of Body

Until I was diagnosed with Stage IV inflammatory breast cancer, I didn’t think much about my body. I relied on it, of course, and I took care of it (exercise, green leafy vegetables, triple chocolate brownies). And it took care of me, until it didn’t. Most of us operate that way, I think. It’s almost an automatic response. Wake up, brush teeth, put one foot in front of the other, make breakfast. Until you can’t. Until one day your eyes open and your body doesn’t cooperate. Until you can barely sit up in bed, much less get to the toothbrush or the kitchen.

Laura at her son Roman’s second birthday party, taken during treatment.

And that was the biggest shock of all. When I heard the word cancer, I thought of chemo, bald heads, vomit, and exhaustion. I didn’t think I would lose my physical being—the part of me that loved to dance, play tennis, jump into a swimming pool, hold hands. I hugged with abandoned.

But as I started treatment, I retreated. It started with the PICC line, making sure no one got near my right arm. And when I got a chest port put in, any form of hug became incomprehensible. I didn’t want anyone to touch me. Everything hurt. A nod, a hand squeeze, a wink became my preferred way of communication. As the chemo drugs did their thing, my mouth and my eyes and even my balance were foreign to me. Sometimes even talking was just too exhausting. I became fearful of my body, of what it was doing to me and what people were doing to it.

It’s not just the treatment itself that seizes your physical body; it is the lack of movement from being in treatment. I woke up every day feeling like a stranger. Where was the strong body that had carried two babies and delivered them without a hitch? Where was the body that had run through the hills, walked thousands of miles in cities around the world, and that had breathed in and out without me even thinking about it?

I would sit on a park bench and just watch people move: walk a dog, throw a Frisbee, catch a ball. I ached for my old body.

Suddenly I could barely walk. The trek through the hospital halls to the parking lot felt like a marathon. Traveling for treatment I relied on wheelchairs in the airport to get me to the boarding gate. My soul resisted these changes. I yearned for the ability to move my body in ways that were joyous and positive. I would sit on a park bench and just watch people move: walk a dog, throw a Frisbee, catch a ball. I ached for my old body. I wanted to sink in a pool of water and float for hours. I wanted to sit in a swing with the kids and spin until we were dizzy. But instead I sat in my bed, stuck in a cycle of vertigo and nausea; I swam in visions of darkness and death. I watched the rain drip from the leaves outside, or the sun create shadows on the house next door, listened to a dog bark down the street. I was motionless. My physical being was gone, lost in a swirl of IV lines, medication bottles, needles.

So while I was trapped in stillness, I decided to watch the physicality of others. My mom bought two tickets to a Cirque du Soleil performance. I hobbled into the theater, my mom holding my arm, and we settled into our seats. The performance began and I sat still, staring at the performers. Their ease in movement, in flight, in motion, and bodies that did what they told them to do—it left me breathless. What must it feel like to wake up in a body that moves so easily. I wanted to touch the acrobats, to feel their muscles, to feel the blood running through their veins, to feel and absorb the life I saw in them. I wanted a body that reacted to touch, that craved sensation. My body had become a pincushion, a way in for medication, a thing to be healed. A body that other people talked about in front of as if I weren’t even there.

I cherish my body, this body that put up the best fight against cancer.

But seeing that performance sparked something in me. Something that made me move a little more, made me forgive my body a bit, too. I walked a little more each day, to the mailbox and beyond it. After the first surgery I made it up and down the wide hospital hallway on the second day, clutching my IV pole. Then more walks: past the marsh with my sister; down a city street with the kids to get ice cream; with my friends to see the ocean. Slowly, slowly, the energy returned. My being returned: I remember the first time I danced (a tango class with my husband for Valentine’s Day), and my first hike up a hill.

The contrast of the before and after is profound. I cherish my body, this body that put up the best fight against cancer. This body that came back to me, a little worse for wear but still here.  I move it every day in countless ways, and even dance in my sleep, sometimes. Finally, the physical me matches the mental me. I am whole again.

Creative Commons photo by Louish Pixel.