Don't be a Hero.

People say it all the time. But I never read into it until now.

I keep bursting into tears at the most random moments, like a video showing how somebody utilised a sample in a song I used to love. 

Repression, right? Must be.

I've got cancer. 

That doesn't seem to illicit any emotion in me. Why not? Because the truth is I probably don't believe it. I'm in denial. I was diagnosed three years ago with a rare type that we've been monitoring, which can stay dormant for a very long time, or maybe, if I'm lucky, forever? 

And I'm feeling fine. 

CUT TO:

The fatigue is kicking in. I can't get up off the couch some days. 

The misdirected sob sessions keep coming.

CUT TO:

Just had the big talk with my haematologist. Chemo starts this Monday. No more denying it. 

Where the tears are now? 

I've always thought that I've had a pretty good grasp on my emotions but then I go and snap at my wife over some menial shit and I know that I'm taking the path of least resistance.

Anger's the easiest one.

There's something deeper.

DISSOLVE TO:

Two sessions in and a new emotion is taking hold; guilt. All in all, it's been pretty smooth sailing. I'm in the middle of a TV show that I haven't had to quit. Apart from some nausea and the hair loss, my body is handling the medicine pretty well. I've had an outpouring of love from family and friends making me feel so special and the truth is I feel okay. I'm not suffering that much. So now I see someone who's really tormented with it and I immediately well up. They've really got cancer. Mine's only the showy kind.

I thought it would be worse. 

Is this is more denial? 

FADE TO:

Four doses in. 

The pillar is wobbling.

Can't do anything without feeling nauseas. Completely knackered some days. Cognition is shit. Confused and disorientated like I've got dementia. Getting fat and can't do anything about it. There's a constant attempt to distract myself from feeling just incase that feeling is nausea, so I'm never really present. 

Still no tears.

SMASH CUT TO:

The money's run out. 

I'm on the phone trying to get a nurse to give me a cert so I can apply for illness benefit. She asks me my PPS number which I've known off by heart since I was twenty. I draw a blank. I apologise. I tell her I'll email it to her. Barely holding it together, I hang up, then completely break down.

There it is.

I'm afraid to ask for help.

Somewhere along the line I decided that I'd be the strong silent type. Stoic. A rationalist. Don't complain. So that's who I was going into this. Let the women in my life worry.

Bullshit.

The random sob sessions had coalesced into a complete meltdown! It was obviously about my diagnosis but I was unwilling to confront it.

It seems that the connecting thread was nostalgia. 

I hear a song that transports me directly back to a time when I was an ambitious young lad, forming his personality, who'd laugh at you if you said he'll have cancer twenty years later, and though he'd already started to act the strongman,  he was still free to be vulnerable. 

And maybe a part of me understands that after this trauma, a new self will arise, one with new hair even, who'd laugh himself at the hopes and ambitions of that cocky young person who came before him. 

If I don't die from some infection or complication, I'll be entering a new stage of my life; approaching fifty, weathered by cancer, and in no mood to continue trying to be the hero that little nipper wanted me to be.

And you know what? It's fucking liberating!

                                                                            THE END

 

Psor Looser

Here I am again, mid fourties creeping up on me, covered head to toe in psoriasis; a condition I thought I'd got a handle on.  I'd gotten to a place where one would have to actively search to find evidence of it of it on my body. And as I pointed out in my previous blog about it, my overcoming of psoriasis came from no longer being bothered by it. That's a simple thing to do when it's not screaming for attention every time you take a shower.

                        I know why I am here. I had booked a role in a show in 2023 which I hadn't read for nor was I given a look at any of the scripts. Naturally my mind went racing about the possibilities, and as it always tends to, leaned heavily toward the negative; "What if they want me shirtless for some unexplainable reason?", "What if that barely noticeable patch of psoriasis on my flank shuts down the whole production?", "What if the make up artist can't cover it up properly and as a result this whole boom in the Irish film industry slows down?", and so on.  So I made the stupid decision to use steroid creams to clear it up. This way I'd be able to put my mind at rest. Big mistake! As with anything in this life; if you try to suppress it, it will, with time, only grow bigger. 

So it cleared it up, but then, within a month of filming, it started to get worse; exactly the effects I'd preached to people when they suggested steroid creams in the past. Now I was in a position where I needed to put my Zen attitude towards it into action. And this was difficult. It made me realise that I was slightly arrogant in writing a blog recommending that people just become okay with blotchy red skin when I myself didn't have it too bad at the time of writing. Now, every time I took my shirt off, I'd have to look at my psoriasis with compassion and truly convince myself that I didn't mind if it never went away. This sort of adjustment to one's thinking takes time. 

                    The only treatment that I've never tried was an immunosuppressive one with severe side effects, like lymphatic cancer, and now, ironically, I ended up getting that anyway. But don't get out the tissues just yet because it's a rare type that can stay dormant for a very long time. I just need to get a yearly check up and keep an eye out for the symptoms. During one of these check ups, a doctor commented on my skin, and recommended she refer me to the dermatology department. I figured it couldn't hurt and, who knows, I might be surprised by the leaps and bounds in progress the medical system has achieved in the twenty years since my last visit. Turns out they're still standing in the exact same spot! I was recommended light treatment. Convinced that it doesn't work, I was reluctantly persuaded that the technology has advanced and that it clears up 95% of cases.

I spent the next three months driving to St Vincent’s hospital three mornings a week and being fried in what are essentially sun beds. My skin was clearing up but with every session missed it became obvious that it was returning. I continued with on with a steadfast scepticism and every two weeks I was assured by my specialist that the process was working until eventually he admitted that it wasn't. He asked me not to loose faith and said he'd talk to my haematologist to see if I could start taking those immunosuppressive drugs, then made an appointment for a consultation again in three months time. I agreed, shook his hand, and vowed to myself that I'd never return.

                    I felt duped, because during our first meeting I told him that there's no cure for psoriasis and that light treatment would only worsen it in the long run, but ultimately I bowed down to his expertise. Now I was left in a position where I knew it was going to explode all over me and stay that way for a good few months so I'd have to relearn the tenets of acceptance that I once preached if I was ever going to get a handle on it.  Cut to: today, and I'm covered in it. My immune system is trying to expel something from my body so why wouldn't I let it? And the funny thing is that when I decided I'd take this picture and put it out there, it began to improve a little.

I just wish that the medical system would add a form of 'Acceptance Therapy' to their long list of treatments. Because, though it's far too late for an ould fella like me to start loving himself, it could certainly encourage young kids to embrace their differences and maybe help them learn how to live with a chronic disease such as psoriasis.