Impatience is Not a Virtue

[Kane Weinberg]

Having been in the maintenance phase of my treatment for about seven months now, I am starting to get quite impatient with the drawn-out, monotonous process of daily chemo pills and the inconvenient monthly clinic visits. You would think that after the initial intense phases of cancer treatment (induction and consolidation), years of maintenance therapy might not be necessary. However, the scientific side of me knows better, and study after study has shown that maintenance therapy drastically improves the outlook for the long term. So, with two years of maintenance left to go, I imagine staying loyal to my protocol and always taking all my medicine will become quite a challenge. I wish it were not so, but at times it just seems like enough already, and any additional treatment is only holding me back. Have any of you had similar feelings on the matter? And if so, how did you deal with it?

[Allison DeSoto]

Yeah I would get that same feeling when I was in maintenance too.  At times it felt almost harder to be half way normal than completely not normal, like it was just a tease of starting to get my life back only to be reminded that NOPE you still have to put up with this BS.  The only thing I can think of to help it is to, like Lisa said, allow yourself to feel the frustration and get it out of your system, then after the purge of emotion bring the logic into the picture and try to look at in the broader perspective.  That at least it is not another 2 years of the intense ish.  Sounds alot easier than it is but perspective always helps.  Hang in there and remember the worst has already past

[Lisa]

Hi Kane,

As I read your post, a couple of things hit me. I feel like cancer is many things but the two that are standing out for me at the moment are "so in your face" and "an unwelcome lesson in patience". Cancer just has that way of being in your face, making sure you know it is there.  It can manifest in emotions, side effects, or brutal treatment regimes among other things.  It also thrusts you into this life lesson in patience that you don't really care to participate in, yet you have to.  When you combine those two things, it just makes the treatment protocols just so difficult to bear. 

My son was not quite 2 when he started chemotherapy and I remember distinctly his first follow up MRI at the 3 month mark.  We had seen some clinical improvement and the MRI showed that the tumor had stabilized.  We would, however, continue with weekly infusions for a long time.  As time progressed, I would have more and more of those "alright, enough already" moments.  They could come in the form of frustration, anger, or sadness.  I can't say I ever developed a great way to manage those moments other than to allow myself to feel them and somehow get it out, which was often either by talking to a close friend or "walking it off".  At the end of the day though, for me it was about saving a life, the life of my child at that.  I knew that treatment would come to an end and I needed to do all in my power to give my child the best chance of survival and quality of life moving forward as I possibly could. 

It seems like in many ways you are doing the same thing.  You seem quite frustrated yet at the same time, committed to yourself and your health.  I feel like you are doing a great thing by acknowledging how difficult it is.  Treatment absolutely holds you back when you are in it.  I can't debate that for second.  But hopefully, in some warped way it becomes time well spent as you move forward, in the healthiest manner possible, to the cliche of "bigger and better things".

I also feel like you indirectly highlight a very difficult reality. Cancer treatment should not have to be as relentless as cancer itself.  We are still so far from where we need to be in the fight.  In a world of simply amazing medical advances, here is hoping we can catch up to cancer....hard and fast.

Keep up the fight! Lisa