I am reading a cancer forum like I do almost every morning.
I had cancer and the accompanying treatments all of 2018 so I kind of feel like I have something to take to the table on those forums. Women who have just been diagnosed and are looking for suggestions or recommendations or just a “what’s next” or “what’s this really going to be like?”
This mornings happened to be about “When does the fear of recurrence end?” “When will I not be wondering what’s around the corner?” “When will my life not be all about cancer?”
The answer to some of that, unfortunately, is never. After you’ve had cancer you are always going to wait for the other shoe to drop. You are always going to wonder if that twinge is cancer rearing its ugly head again. You are always going to be pissed that a cell grew in your body and found a nice warm spot to multiply and attempt to conquer.
Just like someone who has had a heart attack wonders if that pain is heartburn or heart attack. Just like a diabetic wonders if that is the low-low or just a low feeling. Just like that soccer player who snapped his tibia wonders, in the next slide, will he snap it again.
Yes, it’s in the back of my mind some days. Good grief, especially the days prior to a scan. No one wants to be around me. But it’s not in the front of my mind every day. I don’t have debilitating fatigue from a year of chemo. I can feel my fingers and toes. My hair is so thick I need to stop taking my collagen. I can repaint the side of the garage in one day instead of the eight it took during chemo. I can work an eight hour day and still go home and cook dinner.
What is wrong with me that I seem to have moved on with my life after cancer?
Fact is, nothing.
I had cancer. I had a year of chemo. I had four surgeries. One of my breasts had a chunk taken out of them. Twice. I had a port with a tube that pumped toxic pharmaceuticals directly into my heart. I lost my two big toenails. I once laid down on the grass in the back yard because I was exhausted from pushing an empty wheelbarrow. I lost both my eyebrows, eyelashes and the Lady Jungle. I once ended up in the Emergency Room six weeks after radiation, the “Easy Part” of cancer.
I went to the doctor March 9th and 11th of this year. One for a yearly mammogram, the other a four month visit with the oncologist. That’s been it. Nothing in January or February or April. In 2018 I couldn’t go a two weeks without an appointment. Some weeks it was weekly. During radiation, it was daily.
Now, 2020, almost two years from my last Big Chemo, cancer does not rule my life. I can go a whole hour forgetting what I went through. What my family went through. What my co-workers went through. I can go a whole day without thinking about cancer. There are days when I bring it up, it feels like I am making it up. Like I really didn’t do that. Like that year didn’t happen.
The scars prove otherwise.
Yet sometimes I feel the guilt that I’m not doing cancer right. I’m not dwelling in it. The tumor is not my pillow at night. I’m not miserable. I’m not broken beyond repair.
It’s okay that I’ve moved forward. Its okay that I’m not stuck in a role of cancer. It’s okay that I can think about it and not have it ruin my day.
It’s okay that I’m okay.
