Survivorship

Dear Cancer, You Are Light and Dark

Dear Cancer,

Twice you’ve come knocking at my door.
The first time I was only 36 and you snuck up on me,
slow growing, but caught early
in my endometrial lining
but the price to pay was total hysterectomy and the inability to have any more children.

Dear Cancer, You Were Never Invited

Dear Cancer,

A year ago you had the audacity to just storm into my life. You were never invited and you were definitely not expected. You just came in anyway. You have such nerve. Who does that? You have been really tough on me, but I tried to be tougher.

Dear Cancer, You Were A Dictator

Dear Cancer, 

It feels as if you have been with me longer than six months, and that is quite literally because you have. You snuck in and allowed my body to become your ally, to get what you needed to survive. You told my physical being that it would be okay and you wouldn’t cause any problems.

Dear Cancer, You Don’t Care

Dear Cancer,

Not that anything in this world could have prepared me, but I never saw you coming. I was healthy. I wasn’t sick. I was able to do everything that I had always done. I have to give it to you, I’m rarely surprised by things, but you gave me the biggest surprise of my life. I never saw you lurking in the shadows just waiting to take charge of my life as I knew it.

Dear Cancer, You’ve Taken Enough From Me

Dear Cancer,

I write this letter to you to inform you that you may want to reconsider your approach. For me, you came on too strong, out of nowhere, and wanted to be the center point of my life. These are not qualities or characteristics that I look for, particularly in any aspect of my life that I am going to share everything with. You brought me to my knees and held me in a very dark place in the beginning and for quite a while after my diagnosis. I am writing to tell you to get lost and to stay gone. FOREVER. You may not understand why, so I have outlined some things for you.

Dear Cancer, Keep Your Distance

Hey Cancer,
I can see you looking at me.
Stay back, across the street, stay steady.
It’s been two years.

I still feel you crawling under my skin
after kicking you out of me.

Dear Cancer, My Life Looks A Little Different Now

Dear Cancer,

If I would have written this letter a year ago, I’d have said you ruined my life. A year ago I was regularly having flashbacks of going through aggressive treatment for Primary Mediastinal Large B Cell Lymphoma during the winter months of 2020 and 2021. A year ago I was still reeling from my third cross-country move in as many years. A year ago, my body was still getting rid of all the toxins from the aggressive chemotherapy regimen I was put through. A year ago, I still felt so damn misunderstood by my friends and family.

There is No End to the Guilt

The guilt eats away at you. I’m coming up on 10 years post-transplant. I ask less now, “Why am I alive?” but feel more the guilt of my life. The guilt of having a job and friendships and being able to live even a somewhat normal life. The weight of the guilt is crushing. 

I was at the Thanksgiving service where J shared the excitement that the cancer was in remission. She and her husband both kindly patted my shoulder on their way to speak at the front. But what was I to say? Congratulations?

Prayers

Prayers work wonders
Yet sometimes
They also make you wonder
Why sometimes
They are just not heard

College and Cancer

Having been a class of 2020 student, I spent my first year of college at home, taking my classes online. I hung around with my old friends in my old neighborhood, itching to get away to something new. When I received my housing offer for my university’s dorms my sophomore year, I was ecstatic.