Dear Cancer, You Came Into My Life…

You came into my life as a nagging change—a slight pull to the left and a dimple on my breast. “It’s nothing. I am too young for it to be something.” I took you with me to visit my doctor.

Stage 3 breast cancer at 34. I screamed at you in anger and fear, desperate for you to leave my body so I can live. I cursed you for threatening my future with my children, trying to leave them without their mother. I begged you to disappear, to shrink to nothing, and to never come back. I cried knowing you would forever change my life.

Over six grueling chemotherapy treatments, a mastectomy, 25 rounds of radiation, and a year of immunotherapy, you took and took and took. I don’t care that you took my hair or my nails. I care that you made my family watch me struggle. You made them feel scared and worried, and you made them miss mommy at too many events.

I rejoiced at your demise, thankful for those who evicted you from my body and saved my life. “No evidence of disease” ran triumphantly in my head, and I tried to buy into the idea of you never coming back.

But you linger. You don’t come in, but your mere existence in the world keeps me awake. I panic every time I feel pain that didn’t exist before, my breast feels a little tender and my headache lasts longer than expected. Every scan comes with dread that you may have snuck back in the window while I snuggle with my babies and rejoice in survival with those I love.

Your mere existence continues to torture me. Please, let me be.