I Was Made for This

My cancer journey has been arduous but not impossible. Everytime I walk six steps, I feel like my body is taking five steps back. Oftentimes it is. But my heart keeps beating and my stubborn will refuses to give up my fight. I know that God will call me home when He is ready to.

In 2022, I was diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis a month after landing my TRIO dream job at a local college. Three months later I was diagnosed with Metastastic Breast Cancer in January/February of 2023. The cancer had spread from my left breast to various organs before it was diagnosed. I ended up having to leave my employment due to the effects of three disabilities (depression, rheumatoid arthritis, and cancer) and being sustained by a form of disability and various social services. My family did their best to support me during the transitions and continue to.

We lost my Dad to metastatic cancer that summer of 2023. My own cancer spread to my brain within a year of being diagnosed. Shortly thereafter, after full brain radiation, I broke my femur; I spent the second summer of my cancer journey recovering in a wheelchair. The things that kept me going were my family, community, hopes of having my puppy home, and my Catholic Faith. I credit a Novena to St. Joan of Arc with getting me through the radiation and femur, along with Mary and Jesus. I also credit the prayers of my Faith community for intercessions.

I wish that I could say I stood out among my friends, but aside from my own cancer, many of us have endured the loss of a parent fairly early in our adult lives. A trio of us, who had been in Daisy Scouts together, lost both of our parents to cancer within the span of less than a decade. At a time when many young people are fully transitioning to adulthood, I grappled with depression, grad school, and working as an educator at various levels. I am grateful that I was able to begin what appeared to be a promising career right out of grad school, and disheartened that the depression interrupted various pathways of that career.

After close work with a psychiatrist and a therapist, I was able to confront the demons of depression and once again have a hopeful future. I completed four years of working in early childhood education, generally uninterrupted by the depression, and had interviewed for, and gotten hired by, my dream job which entailed advising, advocating for, and supporting students from disadvantaged backgrounds similar to my own first generation to college and low income background. I had learned artistic techniques under the guidance of my brother that helped me express my hope through paintings – mainly of landscapes and flowers. I spent my ‘teacher summers’ literally immersed in flowers at a local botanic gardens, taking myriads of pictures and turning them into paintings.

At some point after, I found out about Sites and Insights through a social worker at my hospital cancer center. I learned to express and work through feelings that I had trouble identifying through the art work that I created in the virtual workshops. Turning my feelings outward, rather than inward, as well as weekly private therapy sessions, kept me from falling into the depression that had haunted my adult life after the sudden loss of my Mom to metastatic cancer 15 years prior. My mom only had about a month from the date of diagnosis before we lost her to stage four cancer in late summer 2008. My dad had about 5 years of recession before the cancer metastasized to his brain. We lost him within about a week after he entered the hospital for cancer treatment in the summer of 2023. The divisions brought on by grief after his death, tore my immediate family apart and created estrangement.

WIthin Sites and Insights, I found a community of people grappling with the reality of living with cancer in its various stages. Many of us have joined repeated workshops and have grown closer as time went on. Beating the odds, I survived whole brain radiation, surgery following the femur requiring two blood transfusions, and the pain of losing another parent to cancer. As I write this, I am grappling with a staph infection that came close to sepsis and the appearance of a second blood clot in my body. By the grace of God, both were identified before they claimed my life. My constant prayer now is to live long enough to spend ample time with my adorable teddy chihuahua mix, family and friends. I also hope to be able to return to my Faith community in person in the coming month.

I was drawn to Sites and Insights halfway through my cancer diagnosis both because of the opportunity to create art and the community connections it offered. I credit it with fostering resilience, a personal awareness that I was not alone in grappling with cancer, and assisting me with truly forgiving an estranged family member. It has helped me heal inside and out. I am looking forward to resuming online workshops later this month. The future remains uncertain, but I have a Catholic Faith and the communities, including Sites and Insights, that sustain me. To quote St. Joan of Arc, “I am not afraid; I was born to do this.”