Cancer and PTSD

Most people do not normally associate PTSD with cancer, but it’s now known that cancer patients and even their caregivers are subject to it.

In 2018 when I was a patient at Brigham & Women’s in Boston I got a taste of it. After a long and complicated surgery I spent nine days in the ICU. I was conscious and functional but restricted in movement by all of the stuff attached to me. It’s never dark, and people came in at all hours to draw blood, take x-rays, check vitals, etc. About one week into it I started to hallucinate. I was seeing things that I knew were not there, which was really disturbing. I was finally transferred to a step-down unit and spent almost two weeks there. The drudgery and routine were mind numbing. By the time I was discharged I was mentally and emotionally exhausted. It was great to be home again, although I wasn’t out of the woods yet.

 

When I finally got home I slept in a downstairs bedroom by myself. I was too weak to go upstairs to the normal bedroom. I started having ferocious nightmares every night. They were so bad I didn’t want to go back to sleep. I turned on the light, listened to music, read for a while; anything to keep me occupied until daylight. Then I’d get up and have a coffee before laying down on the couch and sleeping for a couple of hours in broad daylight. Somehow it seemed safer. I still remember one recurring dream. I had some kind of metal plate bolted to my chest with a rope or chain dangling from it. A big dog would come and grab the chain, pulling hard on it like it was trying to rip it out of my body. I screamed; it was excruciating and I thought I’d die if the plate was ripped out. Then I woke up in a sweat. The nightmares went on for a couple of months and then finally faded. Since then I’ve had a new level of empathy for people who suffer from PTSD but can’t manage to shake it.