On Growing Up and Growing Old

One two, buckle my shoe. Three four, shut the door. Day five, still alive. Yes folks, five full days of radiation and I am still feeling groovy. This afternoon I went for a jog. I have come to relish running outside on crisp, cool fall days under the glowing yellow, bright orange and fiery red leaves. On the way home from rads, my mother and I went grocery shopping. I chose to walk with a separate cart and fill it with the items I planned to use for preparing meals during the week. I am staying with my parents during treatment, but prefer to make my own meals and eat with my husband based on our own schedules. Once a week I will prepare a meal for my family, and on Friday we eat altogether.

At the cash, my mother said that she wanted to pay for my groceries. I thanked her but declined, however she nonetheless shot her credit card at the cashier alongside my card. The cashier processed Mommy's card. I felt completely infantilized and frustrated by the experience and my mother and I promptly began to fight. I explained to my mother that I have very little control over my life right now, given that I am being treated for cancer in a city that I do not call home and am staying with my parents, and it is therefore important that I have some control over the food I would like to eat and that involves paying for it. I understand that my mother felt uncomfortable having me pay for food while living in her house, but this was something that I wanted to do.

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The entire process of having cancer is incredibly infantilizing. At times you are physically weak and your parents want to take care of you. As grateful as I am for having supportive parents, it has been a constant battle to try and maintain a sense of space and independence.

On top of this, you have to hand over your "healthy person" badge and trade it in for the one that says "sick person". You have lost control over your health and doctors are making decisions for you and nurses are caring for you. Your body is no longer your own as you are poked, prodded, cut and medicated. For good measure, you may also become bald.

Ironically, for a young adult, having cancer both completely infantilizes you yet simultaneously catapults you into a far more advanced stage of adulthood. At thirty years old, instead of balancing career and family with thoughts of pregnancy, I found myself balancing chemo with radiation, collecting disability and getting hot flashes. The only thing I remained stuck with in either scenario was morning sickness.

I am not sure at what point in the process of having cancer that I actually became an adult - if I did at all. Was it when I received the final diagnoses and was forced to contemplate my own mortality? Perhaps it was when, as a result of the terrible constipation from the drug I was taking to counter the nausea from chemo, I started to eat Bran Buds, a cereal that on the side of the box declares itself to be, and I kid you not, "An Adult Cereal". Perhaps it was when my terrible fear of needles was replaced with a sick pride at being able to give myself the daily neupogen shots that were required to maintain my white blood cell count. Or, perhaps it was when I received my first lupron shot, which put me into a state of temporary menopause, in an attempt to preserve my fertility during treatment.

All of a sudden, at a point when I was just tiptoeing into my third decade, I was faced with all sorts of ailments fit for someone venturing into their sixth decade or beyond. Yes, I would have fit right into an old age home as my vocabulary now included haemorrhoid, enema, Actonel and, horrifically, Vagifem. (Which, for the record, I never actually used. But my physician parents wanted to prescribe me some. I can't decide whether that is totally infantilizing to have this prescribed by my parents without my even asking, incredibly mature to be discussing these issues with them, or just plain gross.) I can now relate to the elderly, adults past their prime who have now begun a regression back to childhood, who have lost control over their lives and their bodies, who require their own children to make decisions for them.

The experience of having cancer has offered me a glimpse into different ages and stages of growing up and growing old. It has allowed me to skirt across the universe of life and to linger in fault lines typically reserved for a much older crowd. Do I feel significantly older as a result of having cancer? Yes. Do I feel wiser? Indeed. Has the experience overall made me feel more adult, despite the constant infantilization and loss of control? I am not sure. When a young adult has cancer, boundaries between childhood, adulthood and old age blur and there are no "You Are Here" stickers for where you are at any given moment on the road of life.