This week I went over the edge to Crazytown. I have certain criteria I look out for when I’m not feeling myself and thankfully I have a window of opportunity for self-correction. When I hit a certain level of crazy, I’m not quite so crazy that I can’t recognize it.
So I went to see my internist, and she prescribed me the head med with the least chance of diminished Tamoxifen efficacy. As I’m getting slowly spun up to a decent dosage, I feel almost immediate relief. It’s too soon for the drugs to be kicking in, but making the decision to seek help has lowered my anxiety. It’s not too soon for the side effects to start - insomnia, yawning, headache and nausea. I’ll be taking it easy for the next few weeks as my mood levels out and hope to do more when it does.
I resisted seeking help for a long time. I’ve been battling the blues for a while and as Dan can tell you, I’ve been on the edge of Crazytown for a few months, (at least.) Depression is common in cancer patients. I didn’t know how common until I started doing the research into what drugs I could take. It’s a fine line for doctors to walk when dealing with it. They don’t want to plant the seeds so they don’t mention it to patients, and instead obliquely screen for it during check-ups. But I would think that for someone like me with a well documented history of depression, screening would be more vigilant. In fact, I would have appreciated a heads up. Sure, people expected me to be depressed during treatment, but once that was over, I felt as though I didn’t have the “right” to be depressed. I was one of the ‘lucky‘ ones who had a textbook case with a good outcome. What do I have to be depressed about?
This could just be my normal cycle. My depression ebbs and flows in large cyclical patterns. I hit rock bottom every two? three? four? years. Even when medicated I can feel a slight difference, so when I stopped my head med last January there was a pretty good chance I’d relapse. Or this could be caused by any number of treatments I’ve undergone in the past year. Major surgery. Chemotherapy. Hormone Therapy. Drug induced menopause. Or it could be a reaction to the emotional hits I’ve taken having been sick and suffered the loss of major body parts.
In the past six months, when I did mention it to my internist, my oncologist and my therapist, I actually got a little push-back in the form of “it’s the weather/season” “it’s the holidays” etc. I actually stopped seeing my therapist. I needed a break. We don’t seem to be making significant progress. I’m not sure if it’s her or me. (Probably me.) Both doc’s were ok with prescribing something, but with the caveat that there would be negative consequences with my Tamoxifen. I did finally find a study pointing to a drug I had taken in the past and had mild success on. It’s not what I would normally take for my depression, but the interaction with the Tamoxifen is minimal and I feel it’s the right answer for me now. So I sit here with a nagging headache and wait to feel better.
Depression is insidious. It creeps in slowly enough so as to be undetectable. I’ve felt ‘off‘ for a number of months, but I wanted to tough it out. I was pretty pleased with the way I handled the whole cancer thing, and I figured if I could handle that, I could handle a little depression. But of course that’s the crazy talking. I’ve said it before... once you are crazy, there’s no way to judge how crazy you are and then you run the risk of thinking you are normal. I’ve battled this long enough to have a failsafe in place. I hit it on Wednesday. ‘Nuff said.
There have been grumblings in the past month or so about opening new discussions regarding mental health in this country. We are unquestionably careening off the path but I can’t help but think that all the medical science in the world will do little to correct our trajectory. I recently read an article that stated that we have replaced joy or happiness with comfort. (Sorry I can’t cite the article, I can't find it again.) This makes so much sense to me. Comfort is a big house filled with junk that’s supposed to make me feel comfortable. Devices that keep me entertained, ergonomic chairs and lots of clothes and jewelry, art and specialized gadgets to make my life easier, climate control and filters and humidifiers and dehumidifiers and of course tons and tons of organizers to help manage it all.
Retail therapy is at an all time high, but what people don’t realize is that it’s not a therapy, it’s a symptom. I buy to fill an emptiness that never gets filled because I’m not actually craving stuff. I’m craving experiences. I want to feel whole. I want to feel as though I’m contributing. I want to feel appreciated. I want to feel happy. I want to feel a sense of accomplishment. The only thing I accomplish when I buy things is checking something off a list and fulfilling my weekly dose of buyer’s remorse. This is one thing I won’t blame on chemo. Instead I’m gonna say it’s the fault of evil corporations in search of the almighty dollar. This doesn’t mean I’m a Communist or a Socialist. I’m just a realist. Any number of news stories will illustrate that fact. I won’t get into an argument about how corporate profit dictates our lifestyles. That people work full time and still qualify for social assistance is commentary enough.
I did have a thought the other day... If the government provided healthy REAL food free to the poor, they would probably be able to pay for it through medicare/medicaid savings. But I digress...
It makes me profoundly sad to hear my husband say that he wanted to live a life of experience and instead we have a life tethered to ‘stuff’. Big house, big mortgage, big bills, (medical and otherwise,) big responsibilities, big basement and big attic filled with big amounts of stuff. When Naomi was born, we talked about taking a year off then the kids were 9 and 11 and renting a winnebago and driving around the country home schooling them in history, culture, art, music, natural sciences, self-sufficiency, ecology, etc. That time frame begins in less than a year and there is just no way to make it happen. Both Dan and I grew up on the lower end of the middle class. Some years we even made forays into the higher end of the lower class. I can remember not having milk in the fridge because it wasn’t pay-day yet. My children want for nothing, except an understanding of how truly privileged they are.
Depression and other mental illnesses have a genetic component. My children will most likely have their own journey with depression. A life history of immediate gratification and excess are not the right tools for this battle. And yet I’m not sure how to equip them with what they need. We need to travel to India, or Mexico City, or Appalachia. My kids need to see what need is.
No question I can do better in the experience department. I just haven’t the wherewithal these days to put up with the whining. I like to hike. Dan likes to hike. The children do not like to hike. We rarely hike. So then I catch myself thinking “If we only had a canoe... I bet the kids would love to go to the Metropark and go canoeing.” Where the hell am I going to store a canoe? Stuff is not the answer. I need to think of that as my mantra. Advertising exists to convince me that my life sucks and I can fix it by buying something. The easiest way for me to 'fix' my life at any particular point is to go for a long walk, eat some vegetables, sit and hold my kids or husband, and just keep swimming.
