When I shared the news of my diagnosis, I chose my words carefully because I did not want to be misunderstood as I explained what was happening to me.
Through all of this, it has been incredibly important for me to avoid certain pieces of information.
Picture this:
Interior: Doctor's office. Patient and caregiver, and doctor.
Doctor: You have cancer.
Patient: How much time do I have?
Doctor: Six months. Maybe. It depends.
Patient: Spends the next six months with an expiration date hovering over her head.
This is not what happened to me. Instead, it went kind of like this:
Interior: Doctor's office. Patient and caregiver, and doctor.And I have not googled this condition, not even once. I'll be perfectly honest, there are many times that I was tempted to look it up, just for a minute, just for a tidbit of information.
Doctor: You have cancer.
Patient: *Stunned silence*
Doctor: Now, I don't want you looking up information about your diagnosis, because yours is a very unusual case. Any data you find on google will be outdated, and wouldn't apply to you anyway because of your age, the symptoms with which you presented, and your general level of healthfulness. You are going to want to look this up, but I strongly recommend that you don't, because it will not help you.
Patient: Ok.
Here's where The Husband swoops in to be my hero, as usual.
It is hard to be intentionally ignorant of my diagnosis and my potential prognosis. From the beginning, I have tried to be open about mental health, and as my sister has told me multiple times, outcomes in the treatment of any cancer are so dependent on mental health, and it is incredibly important to stay as positive as possible, even when all I want to do is crawl under my bed and cry for a few days.
The Husband has taken one for the team. He's my research guy. He has looked up the things that need to be looked up, and he has been kind and careful enough to not tell me about any of it. I understand that there is some truly frightening information out there. I have none of that information.
Some may feel that it is wrong for The Husband to keep this information a secret, but the simple fact is that I know myself well enough to know that if he gave me some of the information that he has, my mental health would suffer tremendously. I am on anti-depressants. I asked for them about 30 seconds after I got my diagnosis. If I remember correctly, my exact words were, "Yeah... I'm gonna need some Prozac."
Let's go ahead and address the stigma surrounding mental health.
We don't talk about how we take our "happy pills" to function. We don't talk about going to therapy. We don't tell people when we are feeling depressed, hopeless, suicidal.
I have been depressed several times in my life. I have been in and out of therapy for years. I am on those "happy pills" as we speak.
Working through mental health issues is as normal as going to physical therapy for whiplash.
The Husband has been my rock. My angel. My everything. And the simple fact is that my mental health would not be where it is right now if he had not taken the role of research guy. He has protected me from so much that is out there. He has been so understanding of my need for intentional ignorance, and he has built that protective wall around me to keep me safe.
We are realistic. At some point, I'm going to need to end this phase of intentional ignorance. But in the meantime, I am taking care of my mental health the best way I know how, and The Husband is playing the critical role of enforcing that intentional ignorance, exactly as I asked him to all those months ago.
I know that this arrangement would not work for everyone, but for now, it is working for me.
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