Late Night Cancer

Night's blackness envelopes me.  The worst is that the dark seems to crawl inside me, surround me.  I have a condition called photosensitivity.  It can impact a body two different ways.  Many are familiar with the kind of photosensitivity that makes it impossible for a person to be in sunlight.  These dear souls usually sleep during the day and exist during the night.  I have two friends who live with a lighter case of this.  Both of them wear long sleeve shirts with higher collars.  It does not matter how hot it is outside, they must cover their skin. 

My type of photosensitivity is the opposite.  The darker it becomes, the higher my levels of pain increase.  I didn't trust my own experience for a long time.  Then I worked in a basement with no windows.  My pain started to creep upwards.  My constant weariness (think of being in a burlap bag and trying to live everyday life) grew in intensity.  Finally I looked at the clock....it was dark outside.  This happened on multiple occasions.  I try to prepare for my daily shift into darkness.  You can imagine that I do better when there are longer hours of sunlight.  Winter is very difficult for me with it's shorter hours of daylight.   

Of course, physical issues impact our mental outlook.  The more we learn about the brain, the more it becomes obvious that physical health, cancer, diabetes, chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, lupus, lyme disease...all of these noxious conditions impact the three chemicals your brain needs to keep you feeling calm, and at peace.  Dopamine, neurepinephrine, and serotonin are the chemicals that our brain needs to function properly.  Any chronic illness impacts these chemicals, which can lead to anxiety, depression, or other serious mental conditions.

With Fibromyalgia, which I've had for almost 30 years, your body tries to protect you.  It does this by sending pain signals EVERYWHERE throughout your body.  Normally you feel localized pain.  An example of this is when you break a bone.  Your brain sends a pain signal to the area.  This is self-protection.  Your brain is telling you to take care of your leg.  With fibromyalgia pain becomes widespread.  I have even had flares caused by pain as small as a hangnail.   

During the day, it's far easier to maintain a positive outlook.  Light and bright, I can be busy and keep all fears at bay.  I'm actually not quite as light and bright since the cancer diagnosis.  That was a blow to my solar plexus.  CANCER...the BIG C...THE GRIM REAPER...it has been given multiple names.  To me it feels as though my body has betrayed me.  My left breast is now literally a TWO TIMER!  I have never cared for those, either human or breast!  "Fooled me once shame on you.  Fooled me twice shame on me!"  I should have gotten rid of that two timer 27 years ago.

I feel that my words are driven to have a safe place to rant, to vent.  At the same time, I wish to find a positive way to view this very negative experience.  Negative and positive things in life are always before us.  We don't ignore the negative.  Sometimes we need to give it some time for our brains to process the hard, the ugly. 

At the same time, we choose where we focus.  I AM NOT SAYING THIS IS EASY!  Actually this choice can be very, very, (multiple an infinite amount of very), hard.  Do we expect life to be easy?  If we have the expectation of easy, we will be rudely awakened multiple times in life. 

Gold medal Olympic athletes do not reach their skill level by sitting on the couch eating chocolate.  They exert great quantities of effort.  Daily they practice, they give hours of their life each and every day to their goal.  They keep the end result before them to make the hard choices worthwhile.

Today, I'm going to be a gold medal Olympic athlete of living with cancer.  I will lift my vision up to who I can become...even through this hard!