Death and Dying: The Stuff Nobody Wants to Talk About

I wake to a throbbing pain behind my left eye. It feels like something is pushing on my eyeball from behind and I roll out of bed, my body speaking a language only I can understand as I do so. I grab my Pendleton robe off the hook in the bathroom and wrap it around my cold, hairless body and head to my desk to find my glasses. Cold has taken on a new meaning over the last few weeks in a way I didn’t quite understand before I started treatment. Due to the side effects of the toxic drugs being pumped in my body I no longer have any body hair which added a protective layer I never really appreciated until now.

The irony that to kill the invisible cancer cells that are trying to take over my body and destroy me from the inside out, I must pump my body full of toxins that too are destroying me from the inside out is not lost on me.

Rubbing the sleep away from my eyes, I find my way to my desk in my main living room and open the top drawer. I pull out the Warby Parker case and pray that I remembered to put my glasses back there the last time I wore them whenever that was. Maybe if I wear these the throbbing will go away I think but I’d be lying if a part of me didn’t worry that maybe the throbbing was an indication of something more. I don’t often speak of the deeper fears like this one much out of the fear of being labeled dramatic or a hypochondriac so, like so many times before, I just push that thought down deep to rest with the other ones. I don’t want to think about all the maybes that cancer brings to the surface today.

There is always a more plausible excuse I remind myself. I’ve been numbing out watching a lot of TV lately without wearing my glasses. I’m literally going through chemotherapy right now which has a long list of side effects. Don’t jump to conclusions Amanda. This is a hard thing to do though because history has shown me that my body betrays me often and I’m not invisible to the cancers that take up home in my body.

I also know that sometimes bodies just ache and throb. Signs of aging. Reminders and indications that time is moving forward, not back, and I must adjust to the changes that are inevitable. We can do all the things to prevent visible signs of growing older but we all know this truth to be certain; our bodies are aging with each tick of the clock.

Tick tick tick.

One more grey hair. A new ache in my knee. A tiredness deep in my bones. A blurriness to my vision that wasn’t there yesterday. I smile at the naivety I had for year thinking that I was different and aging would not affect me.

In a few short months I’ll be turning forty-three and my thoughts rush to my bald head and how long it had taken me to grow my hair out since I had to cut it short the last time I went through cancer treatment. About ten months after I finished radiation the effects hit my body like a steam roller. The stress on my body and my spirit had created new lines on my face and my hair started breaking and falling out at a rapid rate. The events from the year before had taken a serious toll on my hormones and was triggered even more so from the sudden and traumatic death of my beloved dog Rocky.

I smile at the memory of Rocky as wiggle my toes to scratch the belly of the Baker, the pup I got two months after Rocky passes. I rub a hand over the light stubble that has already grown back since I shaved my head a few weeks ago. I figure by my birthday I’ll have a head full of it and a look that screams GI Jane. In about four years time, just maybe my hair will be long again.

I slide my glasses on my face and swear the dull ache behind my eye eased up just a bit when I do so. I find my way to the kitchen and start the hot water for my coffee. As it boils I feed Baker and grab my blue Carhart beanie and slide it on my head. This has become a daily staple, wearing some kind of beanie 24/7. I look forward to warmer weather where I can wonder about in all my bald glory or at least throw on a baseball cap instead.

One of the few pleasures and joys in my life I am 100% certain I will never, ever, ever give up is coffee. It’s the main motivating factor that gets me out of bed most mornings and especially on these colder ones, as I anticipate the vibrant life-force waking me up after eight hours of rest. When the water finishes boiling I pour it over the powdery substance at the bottom of my handmade tumbler a friend made. A medicinal mushroom coffee blend that claims certain health benefits too. I mean, I might as well try. I have nothing to lose at this point.

I stir the dairy-free creamer into my coffee and walk back towards my bedroom, crawling back in bed. I pull the covers around tightly knowing well that in a few moments I’ll be ripping them off in a sweaty fit due to one of the many hot flashes I get daily. I’m still not sure if these are related to chemotherapy or the fact that I had to go off my hormone therapy due to my type of cancer.

I glance at the clock on the bedside table which I got with the hopes of not sleeping with my phone in my room and it reads 4:25 AM which is a new normal for me since I can barely stay up past 8 PM these days. A 4 AM wake time isn’t so strange I guess. It is eight hours affterall.

I take the first sip of my coffee, another joy in life that is hard to describe but known well by a particular club of people. I allow the coffee to dance on my tongue singling to my body it’s time to wake up. I settle in on the other feeling that has been consuming me the last few days. A thick layer of meloncoly probably brought on more so by the cold and dreary weather but also the question that has been lingering just below the surface for a few weeks now.

I think about my conversation with my oncologist from the day before and the courage it took to ask the question no one wants to think about.

What if this doesn’t work?

My biggest model on this journey, my mom, has had cancer four times and is still here so naturally I just assume my story will mimic hers. I’m also not naive to the reality that it could be written entirely different. That my final chapter could end sooner than hers.

As much as nobody wants to think or speak about death and dying, it’s been on my mind lately. What if this doesn’t work? The small aches and pains that have returned to my pelvis are a near daily reminder that chemotherapy is powerful but so is cancer. I like to think that the pains and aches are the cells dying but can’t help but wonder if it’s an indication that I may not be one of the lucky ones. What if at the end of these six cycles I’m scanned and they see a new mass? What if I finish chemotherapy and the scans indicate no evidence of disease but a few months later I wake on a random summer day and feel that familiar pressure and pain once more?

What if my hair has grown back and life has returned to “normal” and my bones start to ache and the fatigue hits me harder and my bloodwork indicates skewed markers?

Nobody wants to speak of death and dying but death and dying are not a what if. Death and dying are an inevitable and the reality is, I’m young, but I’m not invincible.

I’m not too young or too talented or too full of life for death to evade me. I don’t have too much stuff left to do or so much love left to share with the world. Death and dying doesn’t care about any of that. When it’s your time, it’s your time. I think the hardest part of that reality is not ever knowing when that time may be or how.

But nobody wants to talk about death and dying even though it’s as natural of a part of life as being born is.

I think it’s human nature to want to stay in the fluffier parts of life. To only think about tomorrow and the next day but I’ve never really been afraid of talking about the darker stuff that comes with being human. There has always been a part of me that has known that it’s just that, a part of life.

Maybe it took watching my step dad die last year but it really solidified something for me. Death is ugly but it also has a certain beauty to it. A sanctity.

But let’s not talk about it though. It’s too scary. Our finality is scary. It can feel overwhelming. The idea of not being here anymore is something that so many can’t even bring themselves to think of.

It reminds me of a time I was out to dinner with some friends while I was back in Seattle visiting I still lived in Encinitas and had finished radiation but I can’t remember what season it was. Someone had asked me a question that somehow led to the topic of death. Leave it to me to find the way to the uncomfortable topic.

“I’m not afraid of dying.” I said. “Once I’m gone, I’m gone.” The others huffed and puffed, one saying “I can’t even go there!” while another said “I can’t even begin to think about it.” The others following suit. I couldn’t tell if I was envious of their privilege or annoyed with it. There were two ways of looking at it. Lucky are those who have never been faced with their mortality. Or, lucky are those that have. I still wasn’t certain how I felt about it.

But it’s true. I’ve never been scared of dying. I’ve been more scared of not figuring out how the hell to live fully and deeply. I’ve always thought that once you are dead you are, well, dead. You’re gone. Where you go I’m not certain. I’m not a religious person so I’m not sure if I believe in a Heaven but I’d like to think that wherever we do go we are reunited with our loved ones that have gone before us. Our beloved pets too. Lord knows if that is true, I’ve got a lot of cats, a few dogs and one furry rodent I named MC Hamster waiting for me over the rainbow bridge. Don’t get me started on all the Goldfish I named Fred, assuming that their trip down the porcelain thrown landed them where I’ll one day be going.

And that thought brings a smile to my face. It softens the fear a bit. Imaging that at some point I’ll be running through a field of wildflowers with my boy Rocky and Oliver and Lucy and Sammy and Rusty and Boots and Blueberry. Yes, we had a cat named Blueberry.

Thinking about your own death doesn’t mean it will happen any sooner. It doesn’t mean you are being negative or dark or morbid. It means that you have accepted one of the truest parts of being human. That one day you too will die.

I think that getting curious about your own mortality is actually a catalyst to getting us to live more deeply because when you really think about what it means, you realize that one day it will all be over. Life. It will no longer exist.

So how does that make you feel? What does that make you want to do and say? How do you want to walk in the living so that you may make peace with your one day death?

May I suggest that you give a little thought to it before you end up on a doctors table asking, "what if it doesn’t work?”