Mean Girl

My final chemo was 10 days ago; radiation doesn't start until next week.  For the first time in several months I have a little "time off" - a vacation, if you will - from poison and pokes and side effects.  I should be relishing this time, right?  I should be relaxing and enjoying and laughing and smiling and happy-happy-happy...

Instead, I've become a Mean Girl.

It's true.  I can own this, even if I'm not particularly proud of it.  I am Mean.  I'm really cranky.  I'm a truly unpleasant person to be around right now.  Hell, even *I* don't want to be around me.

A poor soul from the hospital called me last week to inform me (rather unceremoniously) that they don't participate in the chemo co-pay program they had me sign up for months ago.  I was confused; "You gave me the paperwork to sign, how do you not participate in the program?" I asked.  Turns out the oncology center and the hospital don't work in unison; they're separate entities and so one may do something that doesn't affect the other.  The oncology center gave me the paperwork, assuming the hospital participated, and it doesn't.  Which means nothing for them, but everything for me.  And so I got snotty with this poor soul, who did her level best to get off the phone as quickly as possible without long-term psychological damage.  I still feel bad for her.

Five minutes later the phone rings again, and this time it's the radiation department, calling to set up my first appointment.  My heart was still pounding and my adrenaline pumping from the previous call, and so I lit into her, too - unfortunate timing.  People assume I have nothing better to do with my time than attend appointments in the middle of the freaking day - don't they realize I work and go to school 60 miles away?  Right, go to work early and come home, then drive back for class?  Sure, lady, I've got an overabundance of time, energy, and gas to do this with.  Seriously?!?! 

Turns out they only schedule first rads visits at 1:00 in the afternoon.  But my remaining visits should be available at 8:00 am, making my drive to Ypsi fairly uninterrupted.

Oh.  Sorry.

This isn't her fault.  It's neither their fault.  They didn't need to get yelled at by a bald, round-faced, hairless creature.  They don't care that I'm still crawling out of bed some days; that the SEs haven't miraculously left my body; that money doesn't grow on trees or fly out of my butt around here. 

I simply shot the messenger.

All of these months I have been happy, truly happy.  Feeling blessed for family and friends, for support and guidance, for love and kindness, for insurance and generosity.  I have been feeling good, even when I was feeling bad, and knowing that an end was in sight, this wouldn't last forever, I would survive to live another day, to run again, to attend yoga class again, to graduate again, to have a real job again.  There was so much peace that I thought I had come to terms with all that was happening, and I was so proud of myself for being positive and enlightened and joyous.

While I was actively in chemo I think I could see a goal in sight, and that gave me something to work towards.  Now that chemo is over, several people have intimated that they believe "treatment" is done - I think I believe that, too, on some level.  Right now it's hard to see radiation as "treatment" because (1) I haven't started it and (2) I don't know how it will leave me feeling and (3) it won't have the poisonous SEs that chemo has had, so will I feel like it's making a difference?  I feel a little in limbo, in this space in-between the two courses of treatment, and it is here that I am finding my anger.

Either I was in denial or I just didn't recognize the magnitude of the negative feelings that can be had during a time like this.  I prefer to think it was the latter, as I was (and still am) very open to feeling whatever comes along, no matter how bad it might be.  Never having been through anything like this before, it's hard to know exactly how one is supposed to feel - good, bad, or otherwise.  So maybe I just didn't know that I would have moments of being angry, or furious, or nasty, or just plain mean. 

I will start to feel better soon, I'm certain.  The SEs of chemo are slowly leaving my body, but not as quickly as I had hoped (and perhaps expected).  I've been feeling sorry for myself, and that has translated into overt anger and nastiness.  God bless the person who crossed my path and pissed me off because they didn't deserve whatever they got from me.

In the end, it's okay to be angry about all of this.  It really sucks, on so many levels.  It interrupts a busy life; it adds stress to an already-stressful time; it interferes with the best laid plans; it creates chaos that feels impossible to reign in.  Cancer is the gift that keeps on giving (it gives me a headache, a backache, a pain in the ass, numb fingers and toes, disintegrating finger nails. and a reason to buy fake eyelashes, if nothing else).

In the meantime, I'll stuff away my inner Lindsay Lohan, and work more towards finding that inner peace.  Because no one likes a Mean Girl - even me.