Apparently yesterday was some sort of bipolar disorder awareness day. I was pretty busy with a full day of scheduled existential crisis about mortality to notice.
All I've got to say is that we're fucking human, and you can get hyperfucked if you're still writing us like we're magic weirdos with intense mood swings. Especially if it's for a dumb meme, that dangerous misinformation will spread for years.
We're human. I'd love to have a conversation about what depression or hypomania feels like if you're curious, but all you alls simply must stop spreading medical misinformation first.
From the comments
James Petrosky: This sounds like a very specific call out. If is not. I didn't see any of my friends posting stuff like this. I did see lots of stuff like this in groups some of you frequent, though, and that's more than a little bit suspect
James Petrosky: bout me, though, and my mental health.
I don't talk about depression so much anymore. I still experience it, am still medicated and still speak to someone regularly about it. From a medical and quality of life point of view, I absolutely still experience it. But philosophically, is it still disordered if it's about an extremely real thing? Is it still depression when you are surrounded by proof of your impending mortality? Of the failure of all treatment options to accomplish anything beyond the bare minimum?
I don't know, and if you want to have a conversation about it you can find me at a bar outside the University of Waterloo most Wednesdays 2006-2009, because that's the time in my life for such discussions. Today whether it is or isn't depression doesn't matter (and I really mean that, I'm not looking for validation either), today is one of my extremely finite days, and I should make something of it regardless how I feel (although what is dependent on how pretty strongly).
James Petrosky: I've had some hypomania this treatment cycle. It's weird feeling so motivated to do things, and having the feeling of having energy, only to have it all come crashing down when the reality of a body ravaged by months of chemo becomes unavoidable. I still spent a week not sleeping, with a mind that wouldn't stop (only about 25% thoughts of death, so could be worse). Hypomania is only good in fiction, although it can be briefly enjoyable.
Boy do I have a lot of feelings about the Terry Fox Run, F🎗️ck Cancer bumper stickers and the like, and the way the media talks about cancer patients. But it really is a lot lot of feelings, and I haven't been able to articulate them in months, so I guess this is all I'm capable of saying to mark the 42nd Terry Fox Run.
From the Comments
James Petrosky: The man did great things, but it sure would have been nice if we, as a society, hadn't decided that running across the second largest country in the world was one of the proper ways of dying of cancer. It's an impossible standard to live up to.
Nobody dare say you don't hold me to this standard. Just don't.
I know you, individually, don't. But I've been scouring the news for months and it is absolutely how we, as a society, feels.
The actual requirement to die this way correctly is to pick a physical feat that a regular person would recognize as difficult and also something they'd never do. Journeying across the country is the best possible choice. The country is fucking huge. Across a province, or a long trail system also work for less physically capable people. Going from fat pre diagnosis to running marathons also works. The important thing is that you have beaten cancer, and are taking a victory lap (and telling society that you care about your health now, because did you really do everything in your power to avoid cancer in the first place?), or are the general, getting yourself ready for the final showdown (you were going to die either way, in the case, but at least you tried by doing something that was never going to affect the outcome)
James Petrosky: I am not about to go policing how any cancer survivor, family member, or terminal case relates to, and talks about, the disease. If you're thinking of a fuck cancer sticker for my benefit, don't. I hate them. I don't need the constant reminder, I already know it's a pretty shit disease. But if it helps you, have at it.
This is complicated by the juvanile jackasses who broke out the Fuck Trudeau signs days after his election. Whether any of us like it or not, a comparison is being made. What was once a flippant say of saying "ugh, this giant class of diseases, right?" now is forever tied up in conservative grievance politics and the fascist trucker convoy. They made a statement against a disease into a statement in favour of another one (that would fuck me up beyond fixing if I got it again)
James Petrosky: Devoting your life to something important to you is one of the three correct ways to die of cancer. The second is to deny the situation, seek out experimental treatments, and fight (because cancer is a battle, and when you lose a battle, you are at least somewhat at fault (unless your a World War 1 general)). So, really, if you don't fight, how can you be upset about dying?
Again, I don't need to hear that you don't think this about me.
Of course it's really complex in reality, most experimental treatments don't work because that is the stage of research they're at. It showed promise in a dish, let's see how it works in a body. But side effects exist, especially on treatments that haven't been proven to work yet. So, really, the treatment probably won't do much good, it's almost certain to leave you with vomiting and constant diahrea. But you're still the general, and it's still your battle to lose.
James Petrosky: The third proper way to die of cancer is only available to people much older than me. 50 is young in a lot of cancer circles. People 65+ can be praised for dying in their beds, surrounded by friends and family, reflecting on a life well lived. I'm 36, so I haven't lived enough. I just get to die an illegal death from cancer.
James Petrosky: Non Canadians. Terry Fox was a young man who died of cancer while trying to run across the country. He started on the east coast and made it to Thunder Bay, Ontario. He's probably the person you can get the most Canadians to say was the Greatest Canadian.
Its been a happily quiet few days, since I got to return back to my apartment. But that cannot last. There's a winter storm expected tomorrow, which doesn't impact someone who stays home a whole lot, but Friday I have an intake appointment with a palliative care doctor that I don't want to miss or have to reschedule. And then four appointments next week (pre-chemo oncologist appointment, symptom management, chemo, chemo disconnect), which is a lot of hospital trips. Being terminally ill is practically a full time job.
This once again sounds more defeatist and depressing than I mean it to. I'm living my best life, doing hobbies, playing games, taking outings to enjoy seasonal lighting, spending quality time with my cat. Decades of mental illness, and coping with mental illness, have given me a good base for coping with the situation.
For weeks now I've been plagued by a thought. A worry. A concern. I feel pretty good most days now, as good as I have since Cats was in theatres, but I know that won't last long term. I know that some day is going to be the best day I have left, and after that all that remains is a slow decline.
In just under two weeks, I have a CT scan to see how I've responded to my first round of chemotherapy. In about two weeks, I expect the results will be available. And in just under three weeks, I expect to have them explained to me, in great detail, by my oncologist.
I feel fantastic, and I expect a good result, but cancer is a tricky foe and mine is a fairly rare and poorly understood. So I worry about the short term. And I worry about the long term. The first should be fine, but the second is a certainty (ignoring the surgical option, which itself isn't a sure thing and is dependent on the short term results and I don't think about often because it is itself a whole new assemblage of horrors).
I'm fine. Honestly, I'm thriving. I've never been so on top of my hobbies, in control of my day to day life. It's not a feeling I'm used to. But I know it's temporary, both because treatment must progress because we are working towards the surgical option, and because even with the best treatment available, my care is still palliative. I'm under seige, and there may be no help forthcoming. We hold out as long as we can, but one side will break.
Photo from 15 minutes before sunset at Woodland Beach.
From the comments
James Petrosky: This is significantly more bleak than I meant it to be. I'm not changing a word, but know that my mental health hasn't been this resilient since 2010. My medication is the right one, my levels are good, I've done my time in therapy and have a good team in place now. I'm not suffering, nor am I avoiding my problems by overworking. Things are going well. But there's simply no way for me not to be constantly cognisant of my own mortality at all times. And it's been this way for months. Given the situation, it's fine, I have a good team supporting me, after all. But it is a lot.
This is the last day of this cycle. I had my chemo day moved forward to Wednesdays so I only have to travel ten minutes to get disconnected instead of forty (or wait for an hour in an increasingly Covid-19 filled emergency room).
It's frustrating, but also obvious, that other health problems don't take a break just because you're getting treated for cancer. My mental health has been full of ups and downs this cycle - mostly ups, which you're forgiven if you think is better or easier. It's not, hypomania is truly unpleasant. My sleep has been erratic, and I need much more and more constant sleep now than I have in decades. And my appetite has been strong, which isn't all bad, weight loss is a common symptom of both colon cancer and chemotherapy, but one of the drugs in my chemotherapy really messes up my digestion and makes it much, much easier to overeat at a time when I'm prone to overeating or eating too quickly. It's all manageable, but instead of how good I was feeling back in cycles 2 and 3, I'm now constantly in some discomfort, physically and mentally.
This, too, is why I've been taking no pictures and sharing no posts. My brain is too flighty and unfocused. But it's nothing to be too concerned about. It's normal for me to have these episodes, even though I'm properly medicated. It will end soon, and I'll be back to my new, profoundly strange, normal.
From the comments
Ron: Any concern the altered digestion will affect medication uptake?
James Petrosky: I take my chemotherapy intravenously, so at the very least the most important medications will be unaffected. It might slow the uptake of lithium a bit, but since it takes a few weeks to get to a theraputic level in your blood, I don't think its something to worry about. The thing I'm more worried about is that one of the drugs I take for chemotherapy side effects can trigger manic episodes in bipolar people.
James Petrosky: But its a good question to add to my list next time I see my oncologist
Ron: I hope those potential side effects don't appear or are at least mild.
