Cancer Treatments - Case Study Example

The adult female, D, is forty-five years old, single, and currently going through breast cancer treatments. When first meeting her, you see the lightin her eyes has not been diminished by the chemotherapy sessions. While it may seem like she is weak due to her condition, she is quite an active person who is not letting her diagnosis bring her down. My time with D is unusually long for one who has had a chemotherapy treatment this same day. She did not wish to reschedule as the medicine can be more fatiguing the in the days that follow. Her demeanor is welcoming and warm. D has completed two Bachelor degrees online and is still learning at her age. She is of the belief if you don’t use it you lose it. There is cancer and Alzheimer’s in her family, so she takes precautions with her mental acuity as she already has cancer. For not being in the direct age of learning from computers, she is knowledgeable in many software programs and can use email proficiently. Her mother and father are still alive and she visits them each weekend and talks to them at least twice a week. Due to the chemo treatments, her mother is quite adamant about her well-being, and is the baby of the family (of seven siblings), which causes additional concern. Family is important to D and even though she doesn’t have her own children, likes to spend time with her great-nieces and nephews. There are three new babies in the family. D has worked each day of her life since she was 13 years old, when her first job was a paper route. She tells a story of her first day on that route, causing me to laugh at her. Her first day riding her bike and delivering newspapers was a test in balance. Not very adept at throwing a paper while riding, she threw the paper and herself off the bike. Not hurt by this action, she got back up on her bike and finished the route. This experience also gave her the mantra for her life. She always gets up, usually laughing, no matter what the situation. I ask her about events that stuck with her – historical ones, and she mentions she was a baby when President Kennedy was shot. Her recollection is phenomenal as she can recall where she was on the day it happened. Being only six, she was returning home from school, and sat in front of the television with her sisters to hear the reports. Feeling very sad, and not having a definite reason, this memory made an impact on her. She read all she could about President Kennedy, and when she was older even made a trip to Dallas to view the memorial there. The killing of President Kennedy caused D to have strong political interests and became a member of a political group when she was 18 years old. Learning as much as she could about government, the right of voters, and how to create change in the country were strong passions of hers, and still continues to work with the organizations today. Not happy with the current state of government, she says she threatens to run for office “one of these days.” Not really being a planner in life, she takes each experience and day as a new challenge. She believes in living life to the fullest. She says even before her diagnosis with cancer, her look on life has been to do as much as possible before you die. Her belief has taken her around the world with many travels, many adventures, and many experiences that have brought joy and happiness, sadness and pain to her life. As I speak to her about her job, she keeps changing the subject. Her avoidance makes me question exactly what she does for employment. My observations of her as she avoids speaking about her job makes me think I shouldn’t press and that she will answer in her own time. She seems to be one who wants to bring the element of surprise to her encounters. There is sadness when we talk about family – her immediate family, and I observe she doesn’t want to talk about certain people. Her brother is one who she doesn’t want to talk about regarding their childhood. While I am curious, I also feel that it is a subject I may not want to hear about and she may not feel comfortable talking to a relative stranger. She has five sisters and one brother spanning eleven years from the oldest to her. All of them live in the same city, and visit often with each other at their parents’ home. I observe the kindness toward her sisters when she speaks of them, and also about their attentiveness to her while going through treatments. Their mother is a modern day miracle, D calls her, and proceeds to tell me about seven years when they almost lost her. A ruptured aorta required emergency surgery and left their mother in intensive care for a month. D tells me her belief in God is strong; however, she bargained with Him that day. She laughs as she tells the story of going through the typical “grieving steps” and she was at bargaining when her mother was being taken to surgery. D went to the chapel in the hospital, and began praying. Her conversation/prayer was bargaining with God for her mother’s life; that she would be ready for her to be taken but that if she could be spared she would be grateful. D doesn’t remember really offering up anything in return for her mother’s life, but does remember having a question posed in her mind. If you are not ready now to let her go, when exactly will you be ready? She knows that she was not ready to let her mother go at that time, and could never really be in the future. This is one reason why she goes to her parents’ home each weekend, to make sure the memories are there for her when her parents are gone. Having lived in one place all her life, she knows the city very well. She has also seen a lot of changes happen during her life thus far. The hospital where she was born was torn down to make condos. The amusement park she went to as a kid was moved across town and bought by a large corporation. Her schools are still there, but all the places she remembers as a child have been “paved over”. Melancholic about her past, she doesn’t dwell on it or let it affect her future. She is sad that some changes have to happen, but knows that change is good. My observations of her while we speak, I see her physical form go from big to small, both in stature and in presence. When she speaks of things that she is passionate about her demeanor and physical self is very large. When it is things that make her mad, or that she doesn’t want to talk about, she gets small like a child. It is very interesting to observe and I see in some emotional aspects she may be locked in her child-self. Her speech even changes to more childlike. Her greatest joy right now is the new great grandchildren, three of them – two boys and one girl. Once a week the babies go to her mother’s home and D visits, cuddling the babies, and teaching them how to walk and talk. I see how her face lights up, even with the fatigue setting in. Our session has gone almost two hours. In this time of her life, she really relishes new life, and these children bring give that to her. D has stage three-breast cancer, and has just recently begun chemotherapy treatments. She lets me know that she has chosen to be happy about this experience – that she has the choice to be bitter and a pain in the ass about it. But her thought is she is blessed to be in this situation. I observe her face as she says this, and I can tell she really means it. She is not trying to be persuasive about this statement. She really believes she is blessed. D says that she could be hateful, be mad at God, her parents, life or whatever, but that she gets to learn about herself on another level during this time. Her travels have taken her to the far reaches of the world. This journey is going to take her to the best place she has ever been, inside her own self. Taking a moment before finishing, D tells me she is getting in touch with what really matters in her life. This is a critical point in her life where she gets to choose the direction she wants to go, what she wants to do for the rest of her life, and what things she wants to experience before her time is really up. A milestone in her life is how she’ll recall the treatments, surgery, and recovery. It is not a death sentence and she refuses to see it as that. It is a time to live again, time to grow anew, and time to reinvent herself. You can see by her face, her eyes lighting up, she means to take on the world again. Read More