Silence

Cancer is full of silence, even before diagnosis. The healthy cells that should be loud and destroy cancer cells go silent, allowing cancer to slowly and quietly ravage the bodies. Silently becoming deadly.

In the silent moments in the middle of the night, symptoms are still quiet enough that you aren’t convinced you should spend hundreds of dollars looking into it. Scouring WebMD, trying to self diagnose, looking at symptoms, you silently ask, could it be me? Could I have cancer?

Silence.

Going to primary care and telling the doctor the symptoms, when it goes silent. The doctor is weighing the odds of you actually being the one in a million who gets the rare cancer so young. It feels like it lasts an eternity when it’s only moments. Scans are suggested when you ask why? Once again met with the silence.

Going to get the scans where the friendly tech is chatty and happy until after the pictures are run. Gone is her happy demeanor. Now a serious and silent scowl takes over her face. When you ask how does it looks? You’re met with….

Silence

Getting the official diagnosis. “It’s cancer.” You’re perplexed. You’re in shock. You can’t believe your middle of the night WebMD search was right. Everything around you ceases to exist. Unsure how to react or what to do next, you go silent.

Going to oncology. Going to surgeons. Going to radiation. Going to physical therapy. Going to chemo. Going to all the treatments everywhere all over the hospital, where you are forced to go silent.

You’re trying to take it all in. To learn everything. To hear the odds, the outcomes, how to improve your chances. In the moments in between, when they ask you if you have questions or concerns, you crack jokes and smile, doing anything to avoid the silence.

Treatments make you sick and tired, and slowly you become sick and tired of being sick and tired. You want to scream. You want to cry. Some days you do but all anyone can meet you with is silence.

Treatment is finally finished, and everyone is now loud and excited while all you feel is silent. What just happened to me? Am I really okay and alive? Is the danger truly gone? All you can do is be silent.

You find support groups. You find cancer friends. You go on a cancer trip where you do anything but be silent. Desperate to get to know your peers. Hopefully they have the magical answers to ease your soul and bring back the peace your heart needs but again all we’re met with is silence.

For nobody knows the answers. Nobody can make us feel better. In the peace of the forest we finally see and realize that what we’ve been fighting all this time is actually what we need. To be silent.

To feel and heal. For in the silence our souls grow. We finally hear what our souls need. Side by side in the silence we learn to be in the moment and let it all be. We nurture in nature and heal the pain.

Finally,

Finally we’re all silent and free.

Silence