I hate liars. I have always valued people on their honesty. So for
someone who doesn’t like them, I’ve become a pretty good one of late. Most of my patients ask how I am, to
which the socially acceptable reply I usually give them,
‘Good thanks,’
What a horrible, dirty little lie I repeat time and time again, hour
after hour, day after day, week after week.
Yeah. I’m fine. No really. Everything is super. The biopsy I had of my
suspicious mass in my mediastinum (between my lungs) has proven to be cancer.
I’m wonderful. This has been quite possibly one of my biggest fears since
learning of this suspicious deposit in October last year. Now it has been
confirmed. It is in fact metastatic cancer, cancer that has spread from where
it first started. I will now face my biggest, most aggressive and invasive
surgery later this year which will bring with it incredible repercussions and
mandatory life adjustments. Yeah I am awesome. How would people react to that response?
Not very professional is it? But the truth doesn’t take into consideration
being professional does it? And cancer, in short, makes most people
uncomfortable.
I started a race report blog months ago. An upbeat blog about how I
went back and raced Noumea International Triathlon for the 5th time.
How a younger athlete ran me down at 7km on the run leg and how years of
experience, mentally toughness and sheer determination gave me the upper hand
to run away from her and take 3rd place.
And how I then raced Fraser
Coast Triathlon at Hervey Bay and had a solid day to finish 2nd to
an Olympian, even clocking the fastest female run split. All this was quickly overshadowed by what
happened in the following weeks.
Breathe in and hold your breath. Don’t breathe or swallow. ‘Injection
going in’, Breath in and hold your breath. Don’t breathe or swallow. Every time
I have a contrast CT I feel like I wet myself. They actually warn you that this
is a normal sensation of the scan. An injection of iodine enters my
bloodstream, quickly followed up with the smell in my nose and then the taste
of it in my mouth. A few seconds later and there is this warmth between my legs that feels like I have peed myself. The
process is actually really fast. A scan, an injection, a scan and repeat. I
hate every single moment of this process now. In my past track record these
things only lead to bad news. The good news was that my CT in April showed the
two questionable deposits had not changed in size since last year however an
interventional radiologist was confident in being able to take a sample of the
mass behind my sternum. So a few weeks later I went back to RBWH radiology.
Quite scared. They were going to take a biopsy of something behind my breastbone
whilst I lay awake on the table. Thankfully after a local anaesthetic I didn’t
feel the giant needle the doctor put between my ribs and into the suspicious
mass, nor the multiple fine needle aspirations taken via the giant needle.
A week went by and no word on the results. I was told pathology would
likely be back within 2-4 days so when 7 days had gone by I thought it probably
timely to chase up the verdict. I sent my surgeon a text between patients on
Wednesday and soon received the message: “Unfortunately
the pathology confirms papillary carcinoma…..” All I heard was white noise
and a sickening numbness take hold of me. I was there, but I was not there. I
could barely stand. Yet I had a full afternoon of clients booked. That day I
repeatedly asked my clients the same question in a span of minutes. I started
to put an ankle strapping on in reverse before realising that something I do
day in and day out was no longer an easy process for me. I blanked out when
people started whinging about their arthritic knees when they continued to live
a lifestyle of obesity. The day was not helped by my father’s reaction of ‘well
they’ll just have to split your chest open and it should be done as soon as
possible’.
For four days all I heard was static. My
teeth hurt, from grinding and clenching. My head ached constantly with a full
pre-frontal cortex that was overloaded with stress. If I wasn't
drinking I certainly wasn't hearing anything being said to me. I am
still struggling to listen to or process anything anyone says to me.
That Wednesday night I got drunk for the first time in months. Two days
after that I was pretty tipsy and the next night after that completely written
off. I was in good company (Sarah I don’t know what I’d do without my number
one wing woman) which helped drown out the white noise and the pounding in my
head which is still there now. But once the drunken haze had passed nothing could
take away the astounding abyss that lay in front of me.
Okay cancer you win. You have struck me down
multiple times the past two years and I've defiantly rebuilt myself physically and
mentally to give you the angry bird but this time you will have the upper hand.
At the end of the year I will have major surgery.
A sternotomy. A cardio thoracic surgeon will split my breastbone open, go into my thorax and remove lymph node cancer from my chest. This will have grave repercussions on my ability to swim and run as I’ll be left with altered thoracic mechanics, movement and range. Work will be out of the question for several months. I am not a big person, yet I treat enormous people from time to time. Having had my sternum split, lifting obese legs will not be ideal rehabilitation as sternal instability is a risk if I do too much too soon.
At the same time I will undergo my fifth neck dissection as there is still a para-tracheal deposit lying on the right side of my neck. Due to its position it is difficult to biopsy but given my history I’m sure the bastard is sinister. To remove this mass it is more than likely I will be left with a permanent right sided recurrent laryngeal nerve injury. This means a paralysed vocal cord and voice changes. The voice I've had for 31 years will be altered forever.
A sternotomy. A cardio thoracic surgeon will split my breastbone open, go into my thorax and remove lymph node cancer from my chest. This will have grave repercussions on my ability to swim and run as I’ll be left with altered thoracic mechanics, movement and range. Work will be out of the question for several months. I am not a big person, yet I treat enormous people from time to time. Having had my sternum split, lifting obese legs will not be ideal rehabilitation as sternal instability is a risk if I do too much too soon.
At the same time I will undergo my fifth neck dissection as there is still a para-tracheal deposit lying on the right side of my neck. Due to its position it is difficult to biopsy but given my history I’m sure the bastard is sinister. To remove this mass it is more than likely I will be left with a permanent right sided recurrent laryngeal nerve injury. This means a paralysed vocal cord and voice changes. The voice I've had for 31 years will be altered forever.
A paralysed vocal cord will also cause permanent
coverage of half my airway making exercising at intensity pretty much
impossible. My time as a professional triathlete and all those goals and
aspirations of returning to a competitive half Ironman athlete having beaten
cancer will be quashed with the slice of a knife. The gut- wrenching
fact is that it won't be on my terms. I will lose part of my identity. Rachael
Paxton triathlete will be laid to rest. And no, I won’t just roll around
courses to make up the numbers because that is not me. My ethos is all or
nothing. What’s the point of doing something if you can’t do it properly?
And the scars. I can almost pick the moment now when people I meet for the first time register that something has happened to me in order to have a 20cm incision around my neck. Now I will also have a whopper on my chest too. The adhesions in my neck are bad enough now. Another hack at it may leave me quite restricted in movement due to excessive scar tissue. These also come with a horrendously painful, ripping sensation when I move my neck. It would be so much better if my scars were from trauma. An accident seems to make people handle them a little better, because you’re still standing on the other side. When you tell people it’s from cancer they usually say to me; ‘but you’re ok now right?’ Ha, the million dollar question. With a pretty bleak answer.
People say to me 'it will be ok'. This statement
completely unravels me. You’ll be okay because it’s not happening to you. It’s
happening to me. And it will not be ok. Yes I will make something of my life on
the other side but I'm yet to accept that it will be ok. Because right now, it
doesn't sound like an 'ok' life to me. Most days I still can't believe that
this is happening. It all feels like a sick joke or a bad nightmare. I do ask; what
have I done to deserve this? Is a higher power making an example of me? Am I
going to be one of those 'what a sad story' you hear about and not be around to
tell the tale myself? Fuck, I may die. And to most people this really won't
matter. Unlike the friend of mine with an aggressive brain tumour, she has a
husband and two beautiful children. I tell you what; it really makes you take a
look at your life, those that are in it and begs you to ask the question: who
will really miss me if I don't make it through?
So don't tell me it will be okay. Because right now it’s not okay.
Don’t tell me about the retiree you know that’s had a sternotomy. A 70 year old with a heart condition is very different to a 31 year old female who is a physiotherapist and professional triathlete.
Don't tell me how I should feel and not to be
angry.
Don’t tell me YOU got anxiety because I got sick.
Don’t give me medical or health advice. If you know more than the best thyroid oncologist, ENT and Cardio-thoracic surgeons in QLD then by all means but if you don’t, shut your mouth and close Dr Google.
Don’t tell me work is a good distraction, it is not. I resent my job for wasting my last normal days of life pre-surgery. If I could I'd chase every race on the circuit until the day of the operation however that is unlikely to pay my bills. This I will most probably regret. I am replaceable at my place of work. Would they miss me if I quit or died? Unlikely. Is the time I'm spending there in my current state replaceable? No it is not. Reading that out loud makes me so incredibly disappointed with myself for living in such a way that I never thought I would. Wasting my time and life with something so unimportant when I could be making the most of my final fully functional months doing things and a sport that are the center of my being. However, being sick is bloody expensive. I will have to pay gaps for my surgery. I will take an extended period of time off work without income because here’s the cracker of the conundrum, because I’ve worked hard over the years I’ve been fighting cancer, I have too much money in the bank and therefore don’t meet criteria for sickness benefits.
Don’t give me medical or health advice. If you know more than the best thyroid oncologist, ENT and Cardio-thoracic surgeons in QLD then by all means but if you don’t, shut your mouth and close Dr Google.
Don’t tell me work is a good distraction, it is not. I resent my job for wasting my last normal days of life pre-surgery. If I could I'd chase every race on the circuit until the day of the operation however that is unlikely to pay my bills. This I will most probably regret. I am replaceable at my place of work. Would they miss me if I quit or died? Unlikely. Is the time I'm spending there in my current state replaceable? No it is not. Reading that out loud makes me so incredibly disappointed with myself for living in such a way that I never thought I would. Wasting my time and life with something so unimportant when I could be making the most of my final fully functional months doing things and a sport that are the center of my being. However, being sick is bloody expensive. I will have to pay gaps for my surgery. I will take an extended period of time off work without income because here’s the cracker of the conundrum, because I’ve worked hard over the years I’ve been fighting cancer, I have too much money in the bank and therefore don’t meet criteria for sickness benefits.
So what can you do? What you can do is.... Christ I
don't know anymore. Pour my glass full of wine. Feed me good food, chocolate,
cake and coffee. Plan mini-breaks, social get-togethers and non-triathlon
related adventures to help me plan and fulfill my life there-after. Talk to me
as though I don't have cancer. Tell me about relationships, travel, life goals and
aspirations and where you see yourself in ten years time. Remind me that maybe
you’d like to still have me around in another 10 years.
My little light for this year is that my surgeons
have allowed me to still go on my trip to South America in October. I booked
this trip from my recovery bed in hospital in December last year. Much to the disappointment
to my parent’s, this is my priority for the year. I feel that I will be the one
who will be affected by the consequences of waiting a few extra months to have
this operation done. We have been aware of the masses in my chest and neck
since October last year. They haven’t really changed in size at all and there
are no new areas of disease have been identified since. So really it probably
doesn’t make too much of a difference if I have the op done now or at the end
of the year. So I choose travel. I choose to take five weeks with my incredible
friend to go on an adventure because living with regret is quite possibly worse
than living with cancer.
I don't regret a thing I've done, only those I didn't do. I wish I had made the jump and done an Ironman. I wish I had accepted my four slots to race as a professional athlete at 70.3 world champs in 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012 and my slot to Hy-Vee 5150 in 2014. I wish I had taken six months off one year to go and race in Europe. I wish I had been pushy in seeking out the coach I'd always dreamed of having. That dream came all too close after talks with him at the end of 2012 and finding myself working towards it until the day of diagnosis. And now it's all slipping away and there is nothing I can do about it. I am healthy, I am fit, I am strong. I will train for hours tomorrow and am prepping for a race in two weeks. But I am sick. I have a cancer that can kill me. It doesn't make me sick but has potential to make living difficult if I don't undergo the drastic measures to rid myself of this fucker. I don't know how to function. I don't know how to be a normal person because I don't feel normal. I struggle to rejoice in other people’s times of happiness when I feel so cheated, so forgotten and so incredibly broken. I find myself unable to empathize with trivial complaints and have to sometimes physically restrain myself from eye rolling or screaming 'are you f*$king serious?!' Every day I feel my job is on the line because of my mental state. Yet somehow I stay 100% professional in my workplace. I put on a front that everything is ok. I get out of bed, I train, I get dressed, I go to work, I train, catch up with friends and function like I am ok. If you don’t know me then you would think nothing is wrong. But something is wrong. Majorly wrong. Every day there is that moment when I get into bed. That moment where I am then alone to think about what is happening, what will happen and who I will be and how my life will be after this. That moment is the worst moment of them all.
I don't regret a thing I've done, only those I didn't do. I wish I had made the jump and done an Ironman. I wish I had accepted my four slots to race as a professional athlete at 70.3 world champs in 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012 and my slot to Hy-Vee 5150 in 2014. I wish I had taken six months off one year to go and race in Europe. I wish I had been pushy in seeking out the coach I'd always dreamed of having. That dream came all too close after talks with him at the end of 2012 and finding myself working towards it until the day of diagnosis. And now it's all slipping away and there is nothing I can do about it. I am healthy, I am fit, I am strong. I will train for hours tomorrow and am prepping for a race in two weeks. But I am sick. I have a cancer that can kill me. It doesn't make me sick but has potential to make living difficult if I don't undergo the drastic measures to rid myself of this fucker. I don't know how to function. I don't know how to be a normal person because I don't feel normal. I struggle to rejoice in other people’s times of happiness when I feel so cheated, so forgotten and so incredibly broken. I find myself unable to empathize with trivial complaints and have to sometimes physically restrain myself from eye rolling or screaming 'are you f*$king serious?!' Every day I feel my job is on the line because of my mental state. Yet somehow I stay 100% professional in my workplace. I put on a front that everything is ok. I get out of bed, I train, I get dressed, I go to work, I train, catch up with friends and function like I am ok. If you don’t know me then you would think nothing is wrong. But something is wrong. Majorly wrong. Every day there is that moment when I get into bed. That moment where I am then alone to think about what is happening, what will happen and who I will be and how my life will be after this. That moment is the worst moment of them all.
Rachie
xo
