Summary

One of the unexpected side-effects of undergoing cancer treatment might be in the way that the required self-reflection (pay attention to your body, note your side effects, watch your reactions, observe whether you have tell-tale symptoms of one kind or another, eat carefully, etc.) can easily slip into self-centeredness. The former is good; the latter—at least in my ethical and moral training—is to be avoided… but it ain’t always easy to do.

Detail

Once one begins to ingest the cocktail of poisons that are aimed at thwarting the action of cancer cells in one’s body, it is essential that the patient become highly observant of reactions and effects. Through such attention, the patient becomes a more active participant in their own treatment. This attitude is as good, psychologically, for care givers as it is for patients. Care givers cannot be exclusively responsible for the ultimate success or failure of a regimen of treatment.  It is too much responsibility to bear. Too much of the success is dependent on things beyond their possible control. Neither should patients feel helpless in the face of a fearsome disease (exaggerated as it may be, even inadvertently, by fund-raising walks, advertising commercials for wonder-drugs or ads for exceptional institutional care-giving).

Still, in a patient-centered Cancer Clinic, the patient is often intentionally made to feel the center of the operation. The setting at my Clinic is congenial and light-filled. The nurses, uniformly and amazingly patient; knowledgeable, and competent, do everything they can to calm fears, eliminate or diminish discomfort, maintain an optimistic and cheerful attitude. They do all they can to accommodate the different personalities and emotional states of their patients.

The apparent… (I’m not a doctor nor a professional in the field… I’m merely an affected individual) methodology of choice for treating my type of cancer is based on the observation that it metastasizes rapidly. The treatment that has developed is one that identifies cells in the body that are characterized by rapid growth. A protocol of chemicals targets such cells for extermination. What the current standard of care seems unable to do is to discriminate between cells that grow rapidly because of a cancerous waywardness and those that grow rapidly because of a natural benefit for the body.

Many of the side-effects of chemotherapy are caused by the indiscriminate effect the drugs have on benign fast-growing cells. Such common effects as hair-thinning and loss, fingernail changes, skin changes, digestive tract oddities, taste suppression, nausea, etc. mainly seem to have to do with the way drugs affect each of those areas. In common, these are areas of the body characterized by the presence of naturally fast-growing cells.  The unwanted side-effects demonstrate, in a perverted way, that chemotherapy is probably working. If the chemo affects the benign cells the way it does—so goes the logic—it surely is effecting the cancerous ones, too.  But anything can get out of hand.

So patients are told to monitor the changes they experience. Since many of these have to do with self-image (loss of hair) and comfort (tasting food one likes) appearance (changing skin tone, brittle fingernails) and functions (digestive nausea, changes in bowel patterns) the patient can become preoccupied and self-centered in attending to and paying attention to such unwelcome and sometimes distressing physical changes.

The unintended consequences of such self-attention can be a diminished empathy towards family and friends who, themselves, grieve and suffer over the diagnosis and prospects faced by the patient. I’m at the very beginning of my treatment but I can already recognize how much more self-aware I am of my various physical discomforts, minimal reactions, previously ignorable pains. I can see how cautious I am about nutrition and healing. If I just redirect my attention, however, I can see that my friends (among whom I’d count Monica as the closest) are accommodating themselves to my condition, and that that accommodation deserves attention, too; and, indeed, the greatest respect and thanksgiving.

Its a kind of conundrum.  I’m called to take charge of my care by becoming attentive to its details; but I’m obliged not to be unaware of the concern and companionship of those around me, especially inasmuch as the former is good for my physical well-being, while the latter recognizes the injunction of the Evangelist to have comfort in the fact that we, each of us, will be taken care of … for why would we not be, if such wondrous care is given, even to the “lilies of the field”?

Chet