Diagnosis: Afterparty

I’m really good at hiding struggle. Insanely good. I hear this all the time from a lot of people, mostly my husband. I could be drowning, but you’d never see it on my face. I’ll probably even be smiling through it. And so far on this cancer journey, there have been a lot of genuine smiles. Tons of optimism. Loads of “you’re so strong, Katrina!” and me shrugging it off because I didn’t feel all that different. Chemotherapy felt like a breeze, and after every session I was in awe at how not-awful I felt. It was easy until it was hard.

I knew surgery was going to be tough, but as much as I planned for this, I didn’t know just how tough. These past 21 days have been really hard, which is a lot for me to admit. For all the chemo infusions I cruised right through, this surgery recovery has demanded its pound of flesh. Fifteen days in the hospital and every optimistic idea, mindset, or blog post went right out the window. It was painful. It was scary. It was uncertain. The first few nights after the first operation were full of nurses by my bedside desperately helping me with the pain while I was in tears. Good moments and bad moments flipped in minutes. I’ve been home for almost a week and they still do. I’m still not sure I’ve been able to comfortably sleep for more than 5 hours at a time yet.

On the day of my second surgery, August 5, I saw the news that Sydney Towle, a younger woman going through stage 4 of a rare form of bile duct cancer, had died. I started following Syd’s journey when I was looking for young and active women with cancer to follow online. She also had an HAI pump (like I had implanted during my first surgery) and was the person I could show folks a picture of when they questioned what the pump would look like (hers being more visible than mine, as she was clearly more slimmer than I am). Just a few days beforehand, as I was being wheeled to my CT scan to find out if my little liver had grown enough for surgery 2, I found myself repeating her mantra “Happy to be here.” And while I didn’t know her personally, it still felt like a blow to me, someone who was still here fighting.

It’s also easy to get lost in a depressive spiral knowing that even though all visible cancer has been removed with these two surgeries, there is no ringing of the bell with stage 4 cancer. There’s (likely) more chemo. And then waiting. And stacking up the years, until you’re far enough away from it that doctors can say with more certainty that it’s unlikely to return. I’m not even sure we’ve set the starting line to begin counting to five years yet. Thinking of that long road ahead makes it easy to think “what was all this for?”

And through all of this pain of the last couple of weeks, I feel guilty for even letting depression materialize. I should be nothing but grateful for all of this. That I had an excellent response to chemo. There’s no visible cancer left in my body right now. ALPPS was only first developed in 2007, so had this all happened twenty years earlier, I wouldn’t be where I am now. I’m young and healthy enough to have even gone through these advanced surgeries. So many people don’t even get the chance to be in the pain and discomfort I’m in right now.

Even surrounded by friends and family, it’s hard not to feel lonely. But for now, I’m getting by with reminding myself that healing isn’t linear. That it’s okay to cry. That feeling depressed is sometimes normal. And most importantly, there will eventually be a light at the end of the tunnel, even if I can’t see it now.