I’ve got good news and not-so-good news.
First, the good news: Today, I am officially done with chemo. All 26 sessions over 15 months, all fina-frickin’lly done.
The not-so-good news is: I haven’t been in the most celebratory of moods lately. In fact, I’ve been kinda-a-little-very frightened.
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Cancer, in itself, is a beast.
But the fear that is fused in with the experience of cancer is a whole other animal. It begins even before an actual diagnosis in the form of “scanxiety” (scan anxiety); and it can persist, according to many, years after the end of treatment. The fear morphs, it is sometimes quieted, but it is pervasive. In her book, The Cancer Journals, writer Audre Lorde speaks of it many times: “I do not forget cancer for very long, ever. That keeps me armed and on my toes, but also with a slight background noise of fear,” or “Sometimes fear stalks me like another malignancy. . . a cold becomes sinister; a cough, lung cancer; a bruise, leukemia.”
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During the countdown to the start of treatment, I was overwhelmed by a particular type of fear. It’s the kind you have as your roller coaster car inches its way up an incline — with you, waiting white-knuckled and heart-in-throat, for the big drop. You know the shape of the drop and where it ends; you can anticipate much of it.
Taking guidance from the Stoics, I managed this fear by taking apart what I knew was coming. I took each concern — losing my hair, surgery pains, chemo side effects — approached it to the extent I could (like cutting my hair, practicing cooking with one arm), made plans accordingly, and reminded myself that it all shall pass in about a year. Then, these fears no longer had power over me. The woman that emerged from that practice astonished even me! She was brave and ready for the adventure.
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In these past few weeks as I neared the end of treatment, the fear that arose felt different. The fear of recurrence is a nebulous kind; its form is ungraspable and its end-date is uncertain. As such, I can’t prepare for it in any kind of concrete way. Stepping out of routine infusions that were killing off the cancer and out of the watchful eye of my oncologist, I feel like I am being handed my graduation gown and thrown into the middle of the ocean to figure it all out — how to stay afloat, or even where to swim to.
And so I’ve had to manage this fear very differently.
First, I do what i can to stay physically healthy — I eat well, I work out, I try to avoid alcohol and stress.
But I know that it has to go deeper than that. Dr. Joe Dispenza in “Becoming Supernatural” talks about how our thoughts and beliefs influence our physical reality. It all starts with the mind, he posits. So, I have started becoming very conscious of what I feed my mind and what I allow to flow through it. I scrub my mind clean and scroll past fear-mongering posts about how “a recent study proves that chemotherapy causes so-and-so” or how “so-and-so can increase the risk of recurrent”. I do not pay attention to cancer statistics or statistics on family history. Instead, I flood my brain with inspiring stories that show me what IS possible.
Then, during my meditations, I let this knowledge drop into my heart, course through my body, and seep into my bones. I FEEL healthy; I AM healthy.
Then, I drop to my knees and hand over the rest.
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This has become a daily discipline. It has had to be to touch solace. There are days when the fear is still intense, when I struggle to keep my head above water. But there are more and more days when that brave woman shows up, non-alcoholic champagne in hand, itching to start Life Post-Cancer.
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This is the tenderness of an illness. And this is the grace of Life itself.
It will systematically try to undo us — stretch us in one direction, pull is in another. It will break us, mend us, then crack us wide open again. And as we bend and stretch with it, may we one day realize that something new has been created — from a shallow vessel that easily spills over by the slightest fear, we have become the ocean.
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Today, I am closing the book on cancer. Thank you, friends and family, for your prayers, messages, cards, flowers, gifts. You are my biggest blessings. Cheers! As they say here, SALUD!
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Photocredit: Robert Stoke on pexels.com
