Anger and Change

On the weekend I was asked whether I get angry?

In some ways that is a bit like asking whether snow melts because anger is part of my nature.  That is where my creative streak comes from and it has been with me since birth.

As an adult I have learned to work with anger to channel that energy into things that are productive rather than destructive, but back to the question.

The fact is that I am not angry about being ill.  That's just the way it is.  What I do find though, is that after periods when I have been under duress anger rears its head just as I get into calmer waters.  It is like a release; a kind of "what goes down must come up" and I cannot anticipate it.

A seemly innocuous conversation can get out of hand very quickly.  I should stress here that I am talking about verbal expression of anger and that outright physical anger, whilst not alien to my nature is under control. That's not to say that I don't get close to the wind.

The point is that as you go through this process month after month and you come under duress your emotions take an absolute battering as well as your physical-self.  I am not aware of this at the time because you are just getting on with dealing with things day by day but, as I said, it is when you relax that you are can be caught unaware.

I noticed this first when there was a repeated pattern of taking steroids for the first few days of chemotherapy and as the days got easier....bang....the anger would surface.  Here it was less subtle because the rise in energy was palpable and synthetic and surging.

I take two views about occasional outburst under these situations. The first is that I keep on trying to anticipate with them, deal with them and channel more constructively.  Nobody wants to get caught on the end of someone else's anger and it is painful for me and the recipient because it is only someone very close to me who is going to be on the end of it.  They are the only people that your defences are down enough for it to be able to take effect.  It is an unfortunate paradox that they are also the people that you would least like to hurt or offend.

Kitten and I maintain a dialogue and she is not shy in coming forward in telling me when she feels that I am getting too grouchy and I am not shy in telling her why I am getting grouchy.

Being ill like this is not easy both physically and psychologically and I am a long way short of perfect, but illness also offers opportunities.

Everybody likes the idea that they can change the things about themselves that they are not comfortable with.  Well, unlike New Years' resolutions and other good intentions, illness gives you both insight into your flaws and a pathway for change.

Having been ill once before in my life, I view illness as an enormous neon flashing sign of Piccadilly Circus proportions warning that there is a need for change.  So, in my opinion every physical journey of this type is also a spiritual journey and a pathway of change.  The trick is to embrace that change.

The changes I have made already are ones that will stick throughout life.   You will not believe it but some people just don't get the message.  I was at the Marsden a few days ago and saw someone outside with intravenous chemotherapy going into their body whilst they smoked a cigarette.  Now, I know that their cancer may not have been caused by cigarettes but it really does illustrate a lack of willingness or an inability to recognised that there body is in a serious and precarious position.

There are plenty of changes that I have made and some that I won't own up too on a public blog, but a simple one that I will mention is "over-drinking".  I am not someone who has drank all the time in the past, but when I have it is never a couple of glasses.  It is more "in for a penny, in for a pound".

For years I have been thinking that I have had some good years drinking in heavy bouts and that my body has had enough, but there hasn't been any reason too change.  When you go through illness like this it gives you an opportunity to leave the wheel behind and have reason not to revert.

I am not saying that I won't ever go out and have one too many, but you will never again see me with a free-poured Jack Daniels and Red Bull, a glass of champagne a Long Island Iced Tea and a Budweiser sitting prettily in front of me at the same time, if you get my drift.  There is now a sense that the body privileges the person to relax with a drink.  Despite the fact that that drink did not make me ill, and I did not consume it often enough for it to do so, I realise that it is not my right to hammer it occasionally and continually and expect it to recover.  This is because I have experienced what it is like to see one's body to fail.

Whilst I have dealt with major and necessary changes immediately there is also an opportunity to address minor flaws as one comes out of the depths of the treatment and, hopefully, the illness.  Those flaws can be observed easily through the eyes of change that illness provides and it is either an opportunity that the individual embraces or ignores.

All said and done though a person's nature is not up for change, otherwise they become someone else.