Dear Cancer, I Still Hate You

Dear Cancer,

It has been a while since the last time I talked directly to you. After some time needed away after the procedure was done to rip you back out of my life at the same speed it took you to take it over, I am finally ready to address the elephant in the room. What was it about me that made you feel the need to turn everything upside down? Was it my ambitious goals for education? Or my involvement with a swim team, we both knew I had no business being involved in to begin with. Was it my need for something new in life, even after the turmoils of blood clots? Did the clot motivate you, Cancer?

You took my adolescence, and turned me into a hardened rock of a vessel. No longer myself, having to find yet again a new normal before I could even have my first high-school sweetheart. It was you, wasn’t it? The high-school “bestie” that followed me through the years. A friend I never asked for. A friend I saw as a foe. Even now in remission, looking at you as a separate being than myself, you are all I define myself as. I will always be the girl who had cancer.

I had big dreams for my education, I was going to be a teacher. Going through high-school as the sick kid, the cancer girl, the freak, never ended up being in my favor. I dealt with educators doubting my ability to learn. Principals comparing our diagnosis, as if we are part of some f**ked up cult. While she went through treatment, went through IV chemo, and was in remission.. you wouldn’t let me have it that easy. I was stuck with chemo EVERY day. An oral pill with the sole purpose of destroying any and all cells it comes in contact with. Except you. Again and again, time after time, three treatment plans and options later, I was forced to the choice of transplant or death.

All my relationships suffered because of you. Down to my closest people, you changed how everybody looked at me. You changed how I looked at myself, when I could manage to look in the mirror long enough to notice all the changes you have forced onto my body. The hair loss, weight loss, and visible fatigue in the bags under my eyes. Why make someone so exhausted and drained, but give them nightmares that keep them awake? My days resorted to sitting and waiting for the next round of nausea to subside.

I spend most of my days now, six years after diagnosis, 2 years out from remission, angry. I have this deep pitted anger towards you and everything from back then. Back when I was diagnosed. Deep pitted anger towards the doctors who doubted my symptoms. Anger for the educators and mental health advisors who accused my symptoms from the chemo to be faking. But my support circle is ultimately bigger than my hate circle. The trolls in my life will never outmatch the support in my life, and you have always hated that. And somehow deep down, maybe I do too sometimes. I am unable to be in my pity party for too long, without being pulled back out into today’s reality. Sometimes I would like to ponder in that hate with you. The thought being somehow I could go back to before you existed in my life with the amount of hate I have. The amount of pity I carry for myself sometimes, the weight of it dragging me down.

This isn’t a love letter. It isn’t a thank you letter, either. I wish I could turn this into a restraining order, where the word Cancer couldn’t even be uttered near me. You are a plague to my existence, and will never have my respect for the turmoil you have caused. I will continue with my life, as you will continue attacking whatever and whoever you can get your grimy claws on. I am in remission from your clutches, and I will never go back.