Ageing in situ

In another week I'll be back at work, testing my ability to resume where I left off, but I know things will have changed and I'm not going back to where I was, literally or metaphorically. As Heraclitus said many centuries ago, “You could not step twice into the same river; for other waters are ever flowing on to you”- I may step back into the same river, but the water in the river would have flowed on and will be different, and so will I.

I can sense my relationship with my synthetic thyroid hormones will not be an easy one. Yes, I was warned about it, but that doesn't make it easier. Differences from the datum either mean inadequacy or excess. As the artificial substance replaces my natural store, a process that will be near complete in another week, I can feel its impact. I sense it is lower than what I need- my skin is dry and tight, even when lavished with moisturisers; my infamous stubble takes days to surface (it used to just take hours); and most of all is my energy which is plumbing new lows.

I have a new-found respect, sincerely, for the process of ageing. I do feel trapped- my mind knows it can do so much more, but the body will not. I want to walk faster, but I just cannot. I know I could run on the treadmill just a month ago, but my body just cannot. I want to make my love laugh on the phone when I chat at night like I used to be able to and all I think I can muster is banal, tired niceties that would bore anyone- and I wish I could change that, to say that I will be my old self again in a few months, but I just cannot because I don't know when.

It's suffocating. It's terrifying. Watching the life you knew sit just beyond your grasp, and you're being forced to live another one because of the little pink pill you have to consume in the morning. Yes, there's some virtue to taking things slower and appreciating the scenery and not just the walk, but something inside of me is screaming, is crying, because it knows that this is not my datum but an imposed one. I'm paralysed even though I can move.

Hopefully the experts will help me up my dose and reclaim some of what I've lost, and find more to build on. I shared some of my angst with Des the other night- he looked at me and asked whether it had occurred to me that the rest of the world may actually function the way I now did, and what I was now was actually normal. I shuddered; I'd never looked at it that way... Can I make peace with something I have not chosen for myself?

Thanksgiving weekend just drew to a close in Canada. My mum and I are visiting friends do get some time away from my small downtown apartment. I have so much to be thankful for. The last weeks have magnified some friendships and differentiated others. My family and friends have been pillars of strength even as my own crumbled. I've learned to know myself better too- not an easy relationship!

I’m needy right now, and I’m not ashamed to admit it. Lost in this limbo, I can only know myself through the people that know me. Who I am to you helps me remember me. I cling to words of reassurance like a man hanging off the edge of a cliff, with just those words to hold me from finding what the bottom feels like... I can tell myself it will be all right, but you help me believe it.

My mind does look back and ask if I could have changed things. I rarely indulge hindsight, but on this one matter I have. Cancer or a life less lived? What a choice to have to make...