The Cane Is Here. I’m Not Going Anywhere Yet.
My new cane arrived today, but I am too fatigued to take it around the block. With a PET scan Monday and my first mogamulizumab infusion 12 days away, I am relearning how to use a cane while waiting to see what comes next.
My new cane arrived today, but I am too fatigued to take it around the block. With a PET scan Monday and my first mogamulizumab infusion 12 days away, I am relearning how to use a cane while waiting to see what comes next.
My new cane arrived today, although I have not actually taken it anywhere yet. I had thought I might at least give it a trial run around the block, partly to see how it feels and partly because buying a cane and then leaving it sitting in the house seems a little pointless. Unfortunately, I am too fatigued to take it for a walk. That probably says more about whether I needed one than any test drive could.
My legs have been aching quite a bit lately, especially my knees and ankles. I am not entirely sure why. There have been enough medications, symptoms, side effects, and general bodily nonsense over the past few months that I have stopped trying to assign every ache its own neat explanation. The pain is one of the reasons I finally bought the cane. I would rather have something solid to lean on when I need it than find myself halfway across a parking lot wishing I had planned ahead.
Cane Shopping Is Apparently a Combat Sport
Cane shopping turned out to be stranger than expected. A surprising number of products being sold as canes seem to have been designed with self-defence in mind rather than walking. They are advertised as tactical, heavy-duty, and capable of doing things that have very little to do with helping someone get from the car to the grocery store. Some of them weigh a tonne and have handles that look completely useless if your actual intention is to lean on the thing.
At some point, apparently, the cane market split into mobility aids and medieval sidearms. I bought the mobility aid.
What I had forgotten is that walking with a cane is not quite as simple as picking one up and carrying it around. I used a cane for about a year after an unrelated health problem, but that was roughly 15 years ago. Whatever rhythm I had back then has completely disappeared.
There is a gait to using one properly, a timing between the cane and your steps that eventually becomes automatic, and right now mine is anything but automatic. I have to practise with it again until the movement feels natural instead of looking like I am trying to negotiate a peace treaty between my left hand and my legs.
Monday Means Barrie
I may actually need the cane on Monday because I have a PET scan at Royal Victoria Hospital in Barrie. RVH is about a 25-minute drive from me. We have Soldiers’ Memorial Hospital here in town, and it is more than capable as a community hospital, but it is not a regional cancer centre.
If something serious happens locally, they can stabilize you and determine where you need to go, but for specialized cancer care I end up in Barrie. There are several larger hospitals in the area with different specialties, and RVH is where the cancer centre is, so that is where more and more of my appointments are happening.
Serious illness changes your geography in ways I had never really thought about before. There is the hospital closest to home, and then there is the hospital you actually need because that is where the specialists, equipment, and cancer services are. Twenty-five minutes is not a long drive under normal circumstances, but when I am already exhausted before I leave the house, the drive there, the appointment itself, and the drive home all have to be factored into the day.
Twelve Days
I am curious about what the treatment will actually feel like in my body, not what a list of possible side effects says it might feel like.
The PET scan is another step in figuring out exactly where things stand before treatment gets underway. I am curious to see what the side effects of mogamulizumab are actually like for me, because I have learned not to put too much faith in predictions about how a treatment is supposed to feel. I can read the information, listen to the warnings, and understand the percentages, but none of that tells me exactly what my own body is going to do.
Methotrexate taught me that lesson very effectively. I was told it was generally not that bad, and maybe for plenty of people it is not. For me, it was hell. It made me so ill that eventually I could not continue taking it. That experience changed the way I look at every new treatment. I am not assuming mogamulizumab will be terrible, and I am not assuming it will be easy. I will know when I know.
I am hoping for the best and preparing for the worst, but mostly I am trying not to get too far ahead of myself. Monday comes first. Then the PET scan. Then another stretch of waiting. Then the first infusion.
Somewhere in there, I also have to relearn how to walk with a cane. Apparently my body has decided that cancer treatment was not enough and has assigned me homework.
