They are called side effects. A generic term for some not so generic consequences of chemotherapy. Side effects are the aftermath of poison being infused into our body as a treatment for cancer. Side effects vary from person to person. The types of chemo drugs used also vary and can cause different side effects. That is what we are told when we meet with an oncologist. They mention, almost in passing, the possible side effects of treating our cancer with chemotherapy. Most of us have heard of some of the more common side effects: nausea, vomiting, loss of appetite, fatigue, diarrhea. And let us not forget one of the more distressing side effects for many – the loss of all our hair.
What is not mentioned by our doctors are what I call the “wide effects.” The wide, far reaching effects to the lives of those who love and care about us. While our friends and families do not suffer from vomiting or nausea or hair loss, or other side effects of chemo drugs, suffer they do. Those who love us are experiencing this devastation right along with us. As we, the cancer patients, go through our treatment and its consequences, our friends and family have consequences too. They have the “wide effects.”
No one warned us of these wide effects; the hurts and fears and anxieties that our friends and families were likely to experience. We are offered medication to help soften some of our side effects, but what can our loved ones take to soften the wide effects that our treatment may cause them? How do we help the loved ones who try to hide their overwhelming fear of losing us, as they cry in private so we do not see their grief? What can be done to help them get through what may be the worst time of not just our life, but of their life as well.
At our appointments there was no discussion on how to prepare our family members for what was to come, the side effects they would see happening to us after each infusion. Our loved ones have to hear or sometimes see the retching, the vomiting, the fatigue. They are the ones who watch as our hair falls out all over the house, falls out until there is no more hair left on our head. There was no focus on how to help the people who see us in pain and see us struggle with the side effects of our chemotherapy.
As we experience our chemotherapy side effects, our families and friends experience their wide effects. They worry about us and suffer along with us. We can see that their concerns over us are causing them pain too. This in turn causes us to worry about them and so we may try to hide how we are feeling or how much we are hurting.
Which is worse? Having cancer or watching someone you love have cancer?
Change, Grow, Evolve
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Senior Metamorphosis Moments 