Survivorship

Mosaic: Finding New Identity and Purpose After Cancer

Fresh, unaltered
Clay still under my nails
A new vessel
Created by my hands

Parts of Me

Rediscovering myself after cancer. That is a phrase I never thought I would have to use. Some days it’s still hard for me to wrap my brain around my diagnosis. Other days, it seems too real and it’s scary to think about. I could never say there is a “positive side to cancer” (because there is not), but cancer has taught me invaluable things about myself.

My Body is a Jerk

My body is a jerk. A common refrain of mine and an easy short-hand to answer why something happened. Why do you have to go to the bathroom so often, Dil? My body is a jerk. Why did your spine get compression fractures? Because my body is a jerk. Why are you still testing positive for COVID-19 six months after you got over it and have no symptoms? Because my body is a big, fat jerk.

Different Body

Endured, tolerated, persisted, resisted; these are some verbs that come to mind when I think of my body. A different kind of body that was brought into the night side of life. A stressed body condemned to immobility. As a childhood cancer survivor, it is hard to remember specifically what I felt when I was diagnosed or going through treatment, but if I study my scars and listen to my body, I can discover a once-devastated geography.

Not Always A Cinderella Story

I remember walking into the waiting room at the Allan Blair Cancer Center and seeing a few older couples in the waiting room. I also saw a younger couple around my age sitting beside each other; the girl was filling out the paperwork while the boy looked at her with concern.

My Body, My Battle

I’ll pray and then I’ll sleep
I’ll sleep and then I’ll eat
I’ll eat and then I’ll try to do something productive
I’ll do some chores and then I’ll be short of breath
I’ll sit and rest

Cancer Made the People Come Back

They emerged from long silences and came from all times and many different places. They drew as near as possible through words and cards, and so many flowers—so many my small house could not even hold them all.

Swept Away: Healing Lost Trust

I am the parent of a kindergartener. For colorectal cancer, I am early onset. Most people at my facility are elderly. How can they relate to cancer at my age, as a mom of a young boy?

Dear Body

Dear Body,

I don’t know exactly when I began to lose my trust in you, but I vividly remember the moment all trust was shattered. I remember how you had annoyed me with random aches and pains, and a myriad of problems through my teenage years, but you still allowed me to work out intensely at the gym and lift quite a lot of weight in the form of furniture.

(Not Trusting) My Body, (But Trusting) My Self

When I was a little kid, I trusted my body pretty well. I could count on it to run the fastest, land that ollie I was trying to do on my skateboard, send the soccer ball into the net for a goal, land feet-first into the water after flipping around in the air off the high-dive.