How Cancer Treatment Is Like Graduate School

When I was in graduate school I took a class called Cultural Theory. As I recall, the reading assignment for the first week was something like 800 pages; and then the second week was 800 pages; and then the third. Long about the third week one of the students finally asked the professor question we’d all been thinking, “How do you expect us to read all this?”

His answer? “I don’t. But if you want to be academics you might as well get used to the fact that you’re going to be asked to do a lot more than you can actually do, and so figure out how to prioritize and make choices.”

For some reason this week’s new adventures in cancer treatment side effects reminded me of that. The new development this week is leg pain. And by leg pain, I mean it feels like someone is beating on my left leg, from knee to ankle, all night long with a stick. There’s no bruising, though a little bit of redness, but it hurts like hell if you touch it, hurts like hell when you put a sock on (or have a sock on), and generally just hurts like hell as a matter of course. 

Not my favorite of the side effects so far.

It’s starting to feel like cancer treatment is designed to give you side effects until you just can’t take anymore and give up; and the catalog of potential side effects is starting to seem less like potential side effects than all the things you’re eventually going to get, so you may as well just plan for it.

But I'm not a planner, and this is getting pretty old. 

I almost wish someone was coming into my bedroom at night and hitting me with a stick. At least then I could wear shin guards. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do about the new mystery pain.