My New Perspective: The Most Valuable Resource

Minutes. Hours. Days. Weeks. Months. These are some of the measurements we use to explain the passing of time. 36 days. That’s how long it was from the first biopsy to my diagnosis of cancer. 1 week and 2 days. That’s how long from the time of diagnosis until I was seen by Oncology. 1 month. That’s how long from my first appointment with oncology until I was able to meet with my team of specialists at a different cancer center. 102 days. That’s how long it’s been since I first heard the words, “You have cancer.”

Since being diagnosed with Cancer, I have experienced time in so many ways. Time has stood still. Time has slowed down to a crawl. Time has whipped past me faster than I could comprehend. I now reflect on times in my life as before cancer, and after cancer. I have friends from before cancer and beautiful friendships I’ve forged since cancer. My future entanglements with time felt endless and filled with possibility and life, and now my future feels full of uncertainty, finite, and shrinking before my eyes.

Cancer has manipulated something I knew to be concrete. Time. My life doesn’t feel as though it is progressing in a normal, routine, standard pacing. Time between appointments is agonizingly slow. The mornings leading up to scans and lab work speed past fueled by anxiety. The appointments and procedures themselves feel like gaps in time, either coming to a complete halt, or moving at a pace that weaves in and out of reality. Each day can feel like borrowed time, from a future me that will cease to exist, possibly at the hand of this disease that is traveling through my blood.

Time has been my friend when avoidance and space were a warm blanket wrapped around my aching body. Time has been a fierce enemy when I’m nervously waiting, with phone in hand, for an alert from MyChart with the results from my most recent blood work.

I can’t help but feel like I’m running out of time. I want more time with my sister, who is my closest friend. I want more time with my daughter, whose laugh lights up my world. I want more time in the sun warming my skin, salty breeze playing with my hair, crashing waves bringing me the purest form of ecstasy. I want more time to dine at restaurants, see beautiful states, and take sweet pictures with my boyfriend at scenic overlooks along the Blue Ridge Parkway. I want to help more patients. I want to make more of a difference. I want more… time.

Cancer has changed my perspective on the most valuable resource of all: time. Time is not guaranteed. We must cherish it and hold it close to our hearts. I am learning to be very protective over my time and who I share it with. I’m not sure how much time I have left, but I promise I will do my very best to make sure and enjoy it.