One year later: Back to work and "regular" life

Summer is fading into autumn now, but the zinnias and cosmos are in full bloom, frequented by bees and butterflies. Monarch butterflies alight on the zinnias, feeding as they begin their incredible journey south. I feel happy that they are nourished by flowers that I planted indoors as seeds back in March, as winter turned to spring.

I hope you have been nourished by your summer activities, as Claire and I were by ours. We were fortunate to spend time travelling and enjoying the hospitality of family and friends, including almost a month on a trip to Nova Scotia, travelling with Libby, our tear drop trailer. It was a time of healing and recovery for me. Part of me just wanted to forget the past year and put it all behind me, but of course, that is impossible. I have two scars on my left breast (one for the tumour and one for the lymph nodes that were removed) that will serve as permanent reminders of this past year, and I have changed, though it isn’t always easy to articulate those changes in words.

It has been a disorienting and discombobulating experience to re-enter “regular” life on a full-time basis. Though I never totally left “regular” life over this past year, as I continued to do a bit of academic work, look after Claire, and keep one eye on the world’s events, I do feel as if I’ve travelled to another planet, where the culture and priorities are different.

I realize that in “Cancerland” (specifically the Cancer Clinic at KGH), everyone, almost without fail, has been kind, considerate, and caring. They have been focussed on helping me and other cancer patients to be as well as we can be under the circumstances. Even the COVID screeners at the entrance to the clinic were kind—though perhaps I have a biased view because I always tried to see my favourite COVID screener, the one who called everyone “hon.” (Now that there are fewer COVID screeners, I was happy to learn that she is training to be a receptionist at the Cancer Clinic.)

The nurses, the doctors, the receptionists, the technicians, and practically everyone I had contact with in the health care system were caring, even as the institutional pressures and politics of health and health care, especially during a global pandemic, created uncaring conditions for them at work. Now that I am back full-time to work, I am confronted (again) with the uncaring institutional conditions of my own work. Like many workplaces, Queen’s is always demanding more of us, will take every bit we offer, and then walk away when we have no more to offer. (Having said that, I am immensely grateful for our short and long-term sick leave and drug benefits, the result of labour activism, and enjoyed by fewer and fewer workers.)

Having been in Cancerland, where the constant reminder of mortality prompts questions of what constitutes a meaningful life and what is truly important, “regular” life seems upside-down. At work, the pressure to do more with less continues unabated, as the administration tries to pretend that everything is back to “normal,” even as COVID affects every aspect of our institution, and students seem to be struggling more than ever. Instead of caring for each other and supporting each other to be our best, hatred, divisiveness, and apathy seem even more prominent than ever in the “regular” world, accompanied by poverty, inequality, hunger, racism, preventable death, war, environmental catastrophe. As disorienting as it is to re-enter regular life, I don’t want to “acclimate” and lose my sense that things are really wrong and upside-down, to throw away my clearer vision of the state of the world. My task is to figure out what to do with that clearer vision—how to work with others for more justice and a world that will sustain life.

In case you are wondering, the doctors are pleased with how I have healed. I am feeling well, and feeling more like myself, though my energy is still limited. A small part of me regrets not taking the radiation oncologist’s advice to take a full 3 months off after radiation (which would have taken me to the end of September). But, on the other hand, part of feeling like myself again is being back at work, which, mostly, I enjoy. I am trying to reform a life-long habit of working to deadline because I don’t have the reserve to make the big adrenaline push at the end. So, I’m learning how to better pace myself, while also making room for yoga, more exercise, and adequate sleep.

Next week, I will go back to the chemo unit to have an infusion of zoledronic acid, which helps protect the bone from the osteoporotic effects of the anti-estrogen medication I am now taking. I will get that infusion every 6 months for three years. It will be hard to go back to the chemo unit, though perhaps it will help preserve my clearer vision of the world.

I turned 61 this past week, and I was born in ’61. It’s also a prime number, and the inverse of Claire’s age for this year. It seems auspicious. I’ve also been thinking of it as a “fresh start,” having received my cancer diagnosis a year ago, the day before my 60th birthday. And yes, it is a fresh start. But so is every day, and every breath, really. An opportunity to be grateful, engage in what brings us joy, appreciate what each moment has to offer, be kind to others, re-focus on what matters and what is important.

Thank you for reading, for all your love and support, caring and kindness. I won’t be able to repay the incredible generosity that has been shown to me but I will do my best to pay it forward.