"And I promise you I'm doing the best I can." -Rilo Kiley
Tomorrow is my Cancer-versary.
...yay?
As of tomorrow, it’ll have been a year since I was diagnosed with cancer. Last year, I was getting the news (by myself, since Joe had to wait in the car because of COVID restrictions), going home to process, and making questionable decisions like agreeing to foster a puppy to take my mind off of everything.
I feel like I should mark the occasion but...for what reason? It’s not a happy anniversary, but it feels like a milestone. I made it a year. A year full of some of the hardest things I’ve ever had to go through, maybe the hardest things a human being can go through period? I suppose that’s deserving of celebration, which is a nicer way to look at it.
In most ways, I’ve been dreading this anniversary, but I’ve been weirdly aware of it. Sure, it means I’ve made it through what’s been the worst year of my life, but it also feels so...definitive. Like because I’ve had cancer for a whole year, I can’t look back on any yearly anniversaries, ever again, without the thought in the back of my mind that I had cancer at the time. Like even the good memories will be tinged with cancer.
The reality is, tomorrow isn’t my REAL Cancer-versary. I obviously had cancer before I got the official diagnosis, I just didn’t know it at the time. In fact, sometimes I look at old photos of me, photos that were taken in the months before my diagnosis, the surgery, the radiation, the chemo, the recurrence, etc. Back when I didn’t know anything was slowly going wrong inside of me. I look at those photos, I look at that person, and I think, “who are you?” I look different now, I feel different now, and I’m finally coming to terms with the fact that I’ll never be that person again. And that’s OK. Life changes us all, whether we want it to or not. Even if I hadn’t gotten cancer, even if I was just some other variant of myself, I still wouldn’t be exactly who I was a year ago. That’s just what life does.
Still, when I look at that woman, I’m jealous. She wasn’t exactly totally carefree (2020 wasn’t a great time for anyone, and we’d already been having a pretty shit year before the diagnosis), but she could speak whenever she wanted, without having to think much about it. She could eat whatever she wanted, when she wanted, easily. She could go wherever she wanted and not have to worry about bringing enough food that she was able to consume on the road, and a toothbrush and toothpaste to use afterward so her radiated teeth wouldn’t decay and fall out, and lots of water so she wouldn’t get lightheaded and pass out, and she could go and go and go and be out exploring all day without having to worry about her energy being so depleted that she would be a waste of space the next day.
(Traveling with me now is like traveling with a baby. I assume. I haven’t done a lot of traveling with babies. But I think they require constant care and sleep and many supplies.)
So, yes, I’m jealous of that woman but I also feel like I barely remember her. I’ve been grieving that person for a year. Grieving my old way of life, the old me. But I’m coming to terms with my current limitations, and I’m proud of the woman I’ve turned into. I’ve never considered myself a very strong person. I’ve never been good at not knowing what the future might bring. But the past year has taught me a lot. It’s taught me that I can’t plan for everything. In all honesty, it’s taught me that I can’t plan for anything, really, knowing that it could change at any time. I don’t know what the next year will bring. Hell, I don't really know what the next month will bring. But I know that I’ve made it through this past year, which means I can make it through anything (though I’d really like a break, please and thank you).
More importantly, this past year has taught me that I’m stronger than I ever realized, that I’ve endured things this year that would break most people. That’s not to say it didn’t break me too, that it doesn’t break me every other day, but I’ve learned how to put myself together when it happens. I felt completely obliterated the day they gave me the diagnosis. When I went through surgery and radiation and chemo, it felt like they were just further stomping on all the pieces, crushing me into smaller and smaller bits. I’d finally felt like I put myself back together again once treatment was over, only to be knocked back on my ass when we learned of the recurrence and metastasis. At that point, to be honest, I wondered what the point of putting myself back together was. Why I should even bother.
After learning that the immunotherapy was working, I started to feel a glimmer of myself again. Like that woman I was before all of this happened was still in there somewhere. I feel happier, I want to talk more, joke more, bug Joe when he’s trying to do things, go on more walks, make more plans with friends, read more books, just...I want to do all of the things I used to love doing. The things I used to do without thinking. I’ve missed them.
Still, I’m not that woman anymore, not exactly. I never will be. But I’m starting to repair myself, building someone new. Joe and friends and family have all helped me find the pieces I couldn’t find myself, and they constantly remind me that they’re all here for me and will love me even if the pieces don’t fit together in the same way they used to. And luckily, after a year of falling apart, I’m getting a lot better at putting myself back together again.