In Ontario, chemotherapy is administered in clinics dedicated to cancer. The waiting area is always crowded with patients and families. All those people are there for either a check-up, a treatment, or to support a loved one. Over time, it became easy to spot who was new, who was familiar. Occasionally, we ran into friends, neighbours, acquaintances. Cancer is busy.

Our first visit to the clinic, we were wide eyed, looking around, trying not to stare. So many women with turbans, scarves, hats. A very tall, very young man, no more than seventeen with dark circles under his eyes, no hair, his mother beside him, anxious and still. 

The treatment area itself is large. Lined with beds or large chairs, nurses buzz about wearing special protective gear, long before Covid-19. Chemo is not taken lightly. A spill, should one happen, is treated as hazardous waste. And yet, here are all these people holding out their arms for their injection.

It is a brave thing to accept those injections. I can’t speak to any one else’s experience except our own as we went through this. My advice when I talk with someone needing treatment is to dispel all the previous (horror) stories about chemotherapy. Doctors do not want their patients to be sick; the goal is to treat the cancer; no one wants the treatment to be worse than the illness. Everyone encourages the person to return to normal activities.

And there is the rub. It’s a challenge to resume a normal life and not to feel, at the very least, sorry for oneself. For my husband and I, because we had such a dramatic introduction to cancer, with the broken femur, the hospital stay, the surgeries — it was difficult to set all that aside and adjust to our new normal. 

Over and over I have given James credit for the way he handled this. It had been a series of traumatic, life changing events. He did not get caught in a maelstrom of ‘why me’ questions. He would not give in.

Being stubborn has its advantages.

Now, of course he had his moments. He was entitled to tears and rage and feelings of being ripped off. The pride I take in telling you this part of the story is that he did not get stuck in those moments. He adapted, we adapted. More on how we did that next week.

Stay safe everyone.

Anne Milne is an every Sunday blogger.  Temporarily, this blog will be focussed on telling our cancer story. Please share if you know someone who may benefit. Facebook or Twitter.