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Where does resilience come from?
I just listened to a Fresh Air interview with Jane Fonda. She was asked about her resiliency. Jane believes people are born with it. I was born resilient. Just after my first birthday I was very sick. My mom describes the croup and labored breathing as frightening. She describes boiling water and putting curtains over the kitchen door to create a steam room for me. I received my first of probably hundreds of doses of antibiotics over a lifetime to ward off upper respiratory infections. We later learned when I was getting my kindergarten physical that I had been exposed to tuberculosis. That bout with the croup was probably when I was infected.
I’m also dyslexic. It’s an emotionally painful condition. I’m trapped with a brain that doesn’t read well nor can I spell. I didn’t have an iPad to help me. Special Education for non-intellectual disabled people didn’t exist. It was the persistence of my mom, who is very resilient in her own right, and my willingness to keep working at it that I have been able to have a full and successful adult life. A life that included higher education, grad school and two complicated and meaningful careers.
All that does take a toll on one’s wellbeing. I find myself blind sighted in my 60s by two hard-to-comprehend illnesses. But I am resilient. Not necessarily because of willpower, but maybe because of the gift of being born this way.
After my Cancer diagnosis I felt doomed. I was scared and I wanted to deny what is happening to me. I don’t have stories of women living long with this type of cancer. I decided that I would not go public with the diagnosis. I could do that because I’m self-employed. I can do a lot of my work over the phone and internet. For a year I laid low. Only appearing in public with my best wigs. I also followed all the recommendations for healthy living. To my surprise today I look younger, feel better and I am stronger than I have been in a decade maybe two.
A few things have changed my pessimistic view of my future. Molecular testing of cancer and targeted treatments. My future is still unknown but there are treatments that we hope will make my disease chronic not terminal. It’s all very new. There isn’t any success stories yet. Maybe I’ll be the one to tell one.
Before being diagnosed with cancer I planned to work indefinitely. Once I discovered that a cure was not really available I talk to my doctor about retiring. He discouraged that and he encouraged lifestyle changes. He was encouraging me to work with my holistic doctor. He supported and was interested in my diet, fasting before and after chemo treatments. He was the one who said physical exercise was a game changer to survival.
I then decided that I would continue to work until the next occurrence of cancer. Here is the but, I have met all of you and I’ve met people in the Gynecological cancer group, and I have met people at Mayo clinic connect who have demonstrated quitting didn’t need to be the strategy. I now think less about what I will do when the cancer returns and more about what I want to do today. I’m still motivated about what I can accomplish in the future. Retiring is again a distant thing. I’m back on track, but I have a more mature understanding of who I am.
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I don’t know about resilience. I do know that my faith in the One True Living God has kept me going for 16 years now, with HGSOC. I have worked throughout my treatment, when I could, as a classroom teacher to upper secondary school students. My students have been most successful in their HSC results when I have been on chemotherapy! I have had chemotherapy 8 times; 51 cycles so far.
I’ve told this forum that I have the next PET CT scans in February which will almost certainly mean starting more chemotherapy. My oncologist calls me his Champion, and he’s told me that I have been an exceptional patient.
I never imagined that my life would end up like it has. I was very healthy for 48 years. I’m now an expert in listening to my body, and tell people that I deserve an honorary degree in Ovarian Cancer!
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7 ReactionsHi, Denise. Can you tell us more about molecular testing?
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1 ReactionDenise, I have retired, but I was still working when I was first diagnosed with cancer. I found work was a great distraction from it. At the end of the day, it was so great to tell myself, “Wow! I haven’t thought about cancer for 8 hours!”
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6 ReactionsI agree with not retiring. My resilience comes from my faith in Christ. I have just been diagnosed with a High Grade Endometrial Stromal Sarcoma and had a total hysterectomy last Monday. I teach school and managed to do this over the Christmas break. I only took a week off (laproscopic robot assisted procedure) and the minute I got back into the classroom everything was fine and I have been feeling great ever since. If I did not have this work and had to be retired with nothing to focus on but this cancer - - I would be really struggling. But right now, I feel like I am living in a cloud of grace - I have most likely pulled my "exit ticket" this time but my plan is to keep living and enjoying this work and this lifestyle God has blessed me with .....I plan to "rock it til I drop it" :p
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3 Reactions@abrown5540 @lathomasmd @jenelleseaman @denisestlouie @juliea55. Thank you for this post, Denise. I love all these posts of sharing our own experiences and providing ways to encourage one another.
I think there are many kinds of resilience. The source for resilience comes from a variety of places as you all have attested.
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2 Reactions@juliea55 they look for mutation that have targeted drugs. It's new for gynological cancers but it's been used in the breast cancer world for a very long time.
Just my opinion, but I think resilience builds up over time and the challenges we met and overcome. I think it was Nietzsche who said Things that don't kill you outright, make you stronger. I think that's where I got my resilience from.
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2 ReactionsAfter first being diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2008, it took a toll on my marriage and by 2016 he simply left. At the same time the papers were being signed to end over 33 years of marriage, some strange symptoms began to flare again. Six months later I found out I had endometrioid cancer, so 2017 became the year of surgery/radiation and recovery. At the same time I was receiving radiation treatments, my father began a long journey with cancer as well. All during this time, I moved out of the family house, moved into a new house, started a new job and helped my parents plan for the end of my father's life. During this time, I unfortunately had to step away from playing music and giving music lessons yet was able to continue my full time job. Over the entire two years from spring of 2016 to fall of 2017, I would basically tell people that I was "Looking for the new normal." There were just as many positives as there were challenges, but the personal growth in having to learn to live on my own for the first time since 1983 to dealing with a new address with lots of aged-house problems (new water heater in the first month!), I continued to see the positive in the whole journey. Old friends who didn't like the "was-band" (ex-husband) came around again and pitched in when I needed help, and in 2018 I joined a hot air balloon crew and checked a big box off my bucket list by getting to fly and go to the Albuquerque balloon Fiesta, too. Instead of sitting in the mud with self-pity, it was easy to find so much to be grateful for that even when the pain was at it's worst, I could still crack a joke and smile. 🙂 Sometimes the battle IS the victory when you can recognize your own strength.
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6 ReactionsI should tattoo that last line on my brain...
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3 Reactions