When Life Gives You a Bitter Pill

Not Taking It Has Consequences

This morning, with shaky hands, I took my first dose of another hormone blocker, Anastrozole. The extra cup of coffee may have contributed to the shaky hands but the anxiety this pill brings is real.

Because I had a breast cancer that was fueled by estrogen, this drug, known as an “aromatase inhibitor, AI for short,” cuts off the food source for any cancer cells that might get the idea to launch a new counterattack.

Five to seven years is how long my oncologist wants me on it. While I have an excellent prognosis given the slow and lazy nature of the tumors, the risk is real.

Doing chemo brought my reoccurrence risk from 20% down to10% over the next 9 years. Taking the AI reduces that risk from 10% down to 5%.

Wow. That’s almost in the “I think I can live with these odds” sort of a revelation. But it’s not. I can go crazy chasing my tail with worry even over those low statistical numbers because I was one of the unlucky 4% to have cancer not in just one breast… but in both. Additionally, there was a component to the tumors that showed teeth-which is why I had to have chemo. It was a small but significant factor.

I have tried two other AI’s so far. The side effects where intolerable, the last one especially so. I told myself I would try it for 3 months but lasted 6 weeks.

Side effects look benign on paper. Experiencing them is another. Joint pain, weight gain, depression, GI upset and for this one, rosacea. Nothing like feeling like crap and then looking in the mirror and seeing a face riddled with acne.

I stopped taking them a few months ago, despite having a mild sense of a ticking time bomb in my body. Was I signaling “the coffee’s on!” to itsy bitsy cancer cells?

But there is no way I could have endured those side effects any longer. Especially when I was hit with acuteness illness in December and January.

It’s time to get back on the bandwagon, I told myself. I am recovered from all the bleck, back in the gym, and ready to try this next pill. Well, maybe not ready. But ready or not, here it comes.

It’s a bitter pill.

Will I be able to tolerate it? I don’t know yet. I asked my doc if I could titrate onto it slowly and take one every other day to help ease my beleaguered body into estrogen deficiency.

Yes, I can. But only for a week, was the reply. Then it’s every day. I am familiar with the list of side effects as this class of drugs is very similar to one another. But for some women, the slight differences make one AI tolerable over another.

Will the side effects be awful like the first two drugs? I don’t know but my fingers are crossed. I am trying to withhold judgment so I can let this pill work its magic in cancer prevention.

I’ve had a lot of bitter pills to swallow the past few years. The end of a long marriage, financial difficulty, the terror of starting over. And of course, this is all done under the cancer shadow.

I have fought against so much of this. I’m like the psych patient in those movies where the character puts their anti-cray cray pill under their tongue only to spit it out when the coast is clear. It never goes well in those stories.

I don’t want the bitter pill. Just make it go away. I promise to be good, really I do.

And the bottle still sits on the counter. I don’t have to take it. But there could be consequences. Not that there are even any guarantees if I am totally compliant with the treatment plan.

As I’ve said before, I feel like splatter on a sidewalk. Hardly an admission that will ever get me into the upper echelons of self-improvement circles.

Through my reading and times of meditation, I know the key to healing… the key to finding happiness and vibrancy in life is through…

Acceptance.

I feel like splatter on a sidewalk? Feelings, you are welcome here. I accept you.

Take the pill. File for divorce. Release the relationships. Let go of the expectations. Acknowledge the fear. Accept the shitty-ness of the cards dealt me.

It’s counterintuitive and deeply offensive to the ego to take this lying down. Especially in the USA where we pride ourselves on independence and a take no prisoners approach to life. We’re going to beat the bastards or die trying. Failure is not an option!

Holy shit people. Failure is not only an option; it is part of life.

Hanging on is as useless as thinking you can back and change an unchangeable history. It’s as useless as reliving conversations where I imagine miraculously coming up with just the right zinger to give a what for to the opposition. Case closed, take that!

It may feel a little delicious in the moment but there’s always a bitter aftertaste. And the suffering will continue.

As love would have it, I found just the right poem to validate and encourage me to embrace acceptance of those things I cannot change.  (Even though I reserve the right to spit out the pill at any time. Life is all about choices, yes?)

I hope you find solace like I do in the richness of this poet’s words.

Prescription For the Disillusioned

By: Rebecca del Rio

Come new to this day.

Remove the rigid

overcoat of experience,

the notion of knowing,

the beliefs that cloud

your vision.

Leave behind the stories

of your life. Spit out the

sour taste of unmet expectation.

Let the stale scent of what-ifs

waft back into the swamp

of your useless fears.

Arrive curious, without the armor

of certainty, the plans and planned

results of the life you’ve imagined.

Live the life that chooses you, new

every breath, every blink of

your astonished eyes.

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