Moving towards a normal
When I woke up from general anesthesia late in the day on June 9th, the equilibrium I'd grown comfortable with over the course of my treatment was shattered. End of life planning is a complex thing, there's a financial component, there's a kitty cat component, there's a what do I do with all my junk component, and obviously a fairly major medical component. And there's a surprisingly profound psychological component.
Obviously the biggest part of this is the sudden mandatory mortality salience. I think we do our best to ignore it much of the time, but there is no escaping the inevitably of it. And there's especially no escaping it when you hear or read the word palliative, in relation to yourself, several times a week. Or similar, more euphamistic phrases, such as "someone in your condition" or "with your diagnosis". The subject is inescapable.
(Most of the time I'm actually fine with this, and would like to talk more openly and directly about it. I have an appointment with my cancer centre social worker coming up, and this is the main thing I'll discuss)
Another mental thing I did was give up on a bunch of things. Not things I loved, I didn't stop playing with the poodles, or seeing the friends I'm able to see, I still play video games and watch trashy shark movies. I gave up reading the news, because at that point I thought I has 3-6 months, and 3-6 months is just too short to be concerned about anything that didn't affect my circle of friends (everyone reading this is included), I'd still read things people shared, but I quit checking the CBC and APTN daily. I paused all podcasts, and considered moving some of the more upsetting ones (news and atheism podcasts, mainly, the latter because they cover a lot of heinous behaviour directed at queer people).
This last few days, my mental state has improved. I'm not at my old equilibrium, I had a treatment and the possibility of ten years then, but I've spent the year gazing upon death's terrifying face, and am seeing that it's just misunderstood, and there is comfort in that. A comfort that makes me want to remain in contact with the world as much as I can. I'm reading the news again, and while the stories are horrible, I feel like a more responsible citizen when I stay informed. And I'd forgotten how important those atheist podcasts were to my feeling of being part of a larger community. Being a good citizen and being part of community are extremely important values to me, I'm glad to have them exercised again.
From the comments
James Petrosky: The moustache wants to stick straight out instead of connecting to the beard and I just might do it and go villian look