Visceral
It was something I had done one thousand times before, one million times before. Press the button for a ramp ticket, wind through the tightly curved rows of cars slowly, slowly; find a tiny angled parking spot. Gather my things, squeeze out the car door next to the inevitable large SUV parked beside me, echo-step my way over to the blue elevator bay, enter the little glass-doored room, press the grimy elevator button.
Suddenly, all my senses felt monstrously open to receive sensory experience all at once. The automated voice was reverberating inside my skull - “PLEASE PAY HERE BEFORE RETURNING TO YOUR VEHICLE.” The warm, limp breeze blew across my cheeks like a gale force wind when someone opened the glass doors and joined me in my waiting. The beep of the elevator arrived, the lit arrow signaled which one to board, the doors swished open - and whoosh, my stomach dropped into the depths of my toes.
I mutely boarded the elevator, breathing deeply to regain my senses. By the time I arrived to the third floor and got off I was fine, if not a little shaky. What happened back there? I wasn’t even coming to visit my sister this time. I never got this way when she was actually a patient here.
But it’s as if all the experiences blurred and blended. My body recoiled at the mere possibility of seeing her suffering again. In my mind’s eye I can still see her, bald with some peach fuzz for hair, little droplets dripping, little beepers beeping, nurses coming in at all hours. Her comfy cozy blankets and clothes and decor, none of it truly masking the harsh blank sterility of the hospital. Her utter panic when we almost had to take her back there for a fever. Absolute loss of control - blinding fear, scream-crying.
Memories of the strain I felt between my parents - Dad the stalwart ambassador from home, Mom the warrior walking alongside my sister in the hospital, both so willing yet so weary. Walking my dad out to his car in the parking garage, alone, again. Watching my mom wave through the window of the hospital room as I leave her there, again. The utter pain on Dad's face at the first news of relapse, something I’ve seen maybe only one other time - the first time. Mom’s crumpled crying face. All of our pitiful attempts at smiles.
The bloom of hot anger that unfurls in my stomach when I hear of someone’s new diagnosis has become something I expect. For some reason I cannot yet explain, hearing about someone who has cancer currently or has survived cancer doesn’t really evoke much response in me. But hearing about the fresh diagnosis? The wound of terrible news still freshly bleeding out its toxic lifeblood? The feeling of abandonment, betrayal, lack of control? This makes me red-hot with anger.
I didn't expect to be so angry when I hear of cancer diagnoses. I thought, maybe, after my sister had cancer, I would feel more empathy, compassion, or sorrow for others. But no. I feel angry about their diagnoses, angry about the way their world just got turned upside down, angry at what I know they're about to go through. I’m viscerally angry that my sister had to go through it at all, even though she is a survivor now.
Visceral. Who knew my body would become so engaged with cancer when it is not even my body doing the surviving?
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Have you noticed any sensory triggers for you or your sibling as a result of the cancer journey? I know my sister can’t stand the smell of the soap the hospital used, and as a nurse, it became difficult for me to use certain needle types that I saw routinely taped to my sister’s chest in her port. Does time heal these wounds, or are we just stuck this way? Let me know what you think in the comments.