The Devil You Know...

I love idioms…not idiots, idioms. Heaven knows I don’t love idiots! Idioms, however, are fascinating. They are described as an expression of two or more words that mean something other than the literal meaning of its individual words. An example of this would be, “the devil you know versus the devil you don’t know.” If I were to use that expression to a group of people, few if any, would actually believe that I had made the acquaintance of Lucifer. They would understand that this statement meant that I may have chosen to remain in dysfunctional “comfort” rather than make a different choice for fear of the unknown.

That idiom has taken up permanent residence in my mind this past week as I hit a couple milestones in my life. I addition to my membership in the coveted 40 and over club, I endured my final treatment of chemotherapy as well. After 18 weeks of “hell”, you would think that I would be doing backflips knowing that this terrible phase of my life was over. Maybe it is the fact that my body feels like it is 80, or maybe it is just that I am so exhausted all the time that the backflips just didn’t happen. Don’t get me wrong, I am glad it is finished, but for some reason I don’t feel the elation I thought I would now that it is over. In fact, it is a little frightening to leave the miserable comfort that had become my life, because now I now have to face what comes next.

Change no matter the benefit is often a scary thing. American author Marilyn Ferguson wrote, “It's not so much that we're afraid of change or so in love with the old ways, but it's that place in between that we fear . . . . It's like being between trapezes. It's Linus when his blanket is in the dryer. There's nothing to hold on to.”

I can honestly say I don’t have much fear about the surgery, I’m not the first to go through it and unfortunately I won’t be the last and radiation appears to be a nuisance more than anything. It is the “unknown” that gets to me; all the devils that I don’t know that make finishing chemo a bittersweet experience.

As awful as chemo was, it is what I knew. I knew the schedule. I knew that other than a slight prick when they stuck the needle in my port that it really wouldn’t hurt. I knew that after about an hour I would get a headache from the steroids which would last for about 30 minutes and soon after that I would get impossibly sleepy from the Benadryl they gave me to thwart off any allergic reactions I could have to the chemicals. I knew that I would be starving when chemo ended and PJ and I would go grab lunch because by the time we finished eating, my body would be drained and ready to rest for the evening. I also knew that I would go back to the oncologist the following day for the shot that would boost my white blood cells. The same shot that would make every inch of my body hurt so much that even a hug from my 10 year old daughter could bring me to painful tears. The bright side was that I knew that pain would subside a little each day until finally the only reminders I had left of the cancer was the chemo port under my skin, the severe tingling in my hands and feet and the reflection I saw of my bald head in the mirror. Although it was the devil, it was the devil that I knew.

It is frightening not to know how you will feel. Scary to wonder how you will handle the upcoming challenges you face. In my case, my thoughts focused on what if something goes wrong? How will my children handle the physical changes of my body after surgery? What will my husband think of me? How will I feel about myself? Surgery is permanent. Even though it means that all the cancer will be gone and I will have survived. There are no “do-overs” if I don’t like this devil that is unknown to me...and that is scary.

Yet in my rational brain, I remind myself that I survived chemotherapy. As miserable as the worst days had been, with a tremendous amount of support, I survived it and it is over. I should be...doing backflips.

So why is it that we embrace the comfort of what we know, even if what we know is miserable? Do we sabotage our successes everyday by hiding in our comfort zone? Does our fear of the unknown paralyze us from moving forward, obtaining our goals or achieving things we did not think possible?

Change, in any form, does not occur without a little discomfort. It might be relocation, a change in jobs, and the birth of a child…or even the end of chemotherapy. I hope that I won’t continue to let the comfort of the “devil I know” keep me from the possible paradise that may be waiting for me with the “devil I don’t know”…well at least not yet.


Have a great week.