You Knew Me First

Dear Cancer,

There’s so much to say, isn’t there? You knew me long before I knew you. An invisible string was always there, binding us to one another. Before my double mastectomy, my radiation or my chemo, even before I noticed that lump in my breast for the first time, you knew you had big plans for me while I lived my life unencumbered by your undisclosed existence.

I want to thank you for coming to me when you did. You granted me 35 years of a picture-perfect life: loving parents, an amazing younger brother, genuine lifelong friends. The best opportunities, travel and experiences that often made me wonder “what did I do to deserve such beauty?” You were probably secretly there, all along, but you waited. And for that I am so grateful.

I then met the love of my life when I was 28 years old. You let me have that, too. Real, true love. Did you know I would so desperately need Will in my life… for later? Did you subconsciously help me select him, knowing I would require a man just like him, one that is so strong, so caring, so resilient?

And then, the ultimate gift. My two gorgeous, perfect, healthy boys. Born only 13 months apart, I gave birth to Benjamin and then Theodore shortly after. I still didn’t know you. I had no idea about you. Thank you for waiting. Thank you God for waiting. You were there the entire time, but you were patient. Kind, even. I savored 18 months total with both of my sons, functioning as a normal, albeit stressed and sleep-deprived, mom in her mid 30s. Just like all of my friends. I had everything I ever wanted, but not for long.

There is no way to look at my life now other than to define it by you. BC, before cancer. And then AC, the after. My yesterday, my today and all of my tomorrows will be AC forevermore. I don’t get to go back. When I was first diagnosed, once the emotional pain became more of a constant numbness instead of an all-encompassing, crushing weight, I had high hopes that this would be a phase. A horrendous phase, but a phase nonetheless. But now, almost three years later, I know better. I’m never getting rid of you. We are sealed together for the rest of my days.

We’ve spent every waking day together since we first met on September 12, 2022. Every nine hour day as I sat in the chemo chair, shivering from my cold cap and iced mitts and booties. I wasn’t alone. We were together. Every single time I sat under that sci-fi-looking radiation machine, my nipple-less mounds projecting outwards for everyone to see, you were there. Every single one of the at least eight times I have been wheeled back to the OR, IV in my arm, wrapped up in hospital blankets and snapped into a hospital gown, you, cancer, were there.

They tell me you are gone now, but I know better. I’ll never be free of you, even if you aren’t ferociously growing in my breast tissue or my lymph nodes anymore. Medically speaking, you are dead. And have been for quite a while. Even my blood test shows my medical treatment has erased all traces of you from my system. I am healthy. I should be happy. It is time to move on. By all accounts, you have been removed.

So why do I feel your presence now more than ever?

In every decision I make, I run it by you first. Can I go to Book Club tonight, I ask you sheepishly, hoping you’ll say yes. That morning you told me it would be ok, but by 3pm you’ve changed your mind. Crippling fatigue is taking over. There’s no way I can make it. So you force me to go back on my word.

“Sorry guys, something came up with childcare,” I say to the group chat.

I used to do what I said I was going to do. Now you’ve made me into a flaky friend.

Another day, I ask you if it’s ok if I have wine with my friends in the mountains. You approve! I am so excited. I can be like everyone else tonight on this girl’s trip. I can be the old me, the fun me. Think again. As soon as I wake up with a hangover, I am transported back to my bathroom floor at home, sitting on the cold tiles and hugging the toilet after the toxic chemo was administered into me. I’ll never not think of my bathroom floor now whenever a wave of nausea hits, for any reason.

You completely vetoed the idea of a third child. A daughter that I would have named Holland, my maiden name. I love my sons, and I know you gave me that time with them. But I wanted a chance at that daughter. You said no.

And then there’s Will. How often you tell me no when I want to get intimate with my husband. “You only have one breast,” you remind me. “Who wants to see that?”

“You’re right,” I agree. “It’s so unsightly.” I tell Will not tonight.

Not tonight. Not now. Not today. Not ever.
I’m dry. It hurts. I’m ugly.
I beg you to grant me normalcy. My God, he’s my husband. This isn’t fucking fair.

“Fine,” you finally agree. “You can do it, but I promise you, you aren’t going to like a second of it.” And if I know anything about you, you say what you mean. You, unlike me, keep your word.

So while I have so much to thank you for, for letting me have that amazing life for so long, I do wonder why now you want to torture me so. You have revealed something profound about the meaning of life to me. I look around and feel like an alien amongst my peers, knowing that I’ve learned lessons that they may not learn until they’re 80, if ever. I love having this new perspective — I am able to appreciate every single day in a way I never could before. You help me stay so present with my life, with my children, with everything that truly matters.

It is all an impossibly surreal blessing. So why does it all still hurt so much? Why do you keep crushing me, cancer?

I don’t worry about you coming back. In a physical sense, anyway. Because frankly, you never have left me. I know we are in this together now, always. You may know me better than I even know myself by now. Slowly, day by day, I have started to accept we will face every future milestone together. Graduations, anniversaries, deaths, new adventures, dropping the boys off at college, watching the boys succeed and grow up and be married men one day.

You have hurt me inexplicably, yet you’ve never abandoned me either. Maybe two things can be true.

As we look to the future, though, I just beg of you one thing: please take it easy on me.

Sincerely,
Adrienne