Cancer

The Death of Relatability

Cancer steals a lot from you. Your time, your health, your freedom, sometimes even your life. The day that you’re diagnosed, doors that remain open for many other people slam shut in your face. And other doors—unwanted at best—open and beg to be entered.

Unstable Ground and Holding Hope Gently

Two days before my final treatment, I write myself a letter in my journal. Everything does not happen for a reason, but I can’t deny that I’ve found one anyway.

You Will Be Brave, Too

Human lives are stories, and as such, defined by words. In my own case, like so many other incurable cancer patients, the word “incurable” is coded for “hopeless” and/or “doomed,” in the first weeks after diagnosis.

How Do I Find Life With You?

Dear Cancer,

Here I go again, writing to you. Sometimes it feels like I’m writing to a frenemy who won’t go away because you’ve made the biggest impact on my life.

Dear Cancer, Remember Me?

Dear Cancer,

Wow, I can’t believe it has been 28 years since I met you. You stopped my life in my teenage tracks and at the same time gave me a perception of gratitude and life I never knew was possible. One day I was playing varsity field hockey and the next I was holed up on the Upper West Side getting chemo.

Dear Cancer: I Will Never Say Thank You

Dear Cancer,

If I tell you this, promise not to tell anyone else, because I can barely bring myself to write it, and I will never say this out loud.

To Suffer and to Teach

Dear Cancer,

When you entered my life, I couldn’t say your name without bursting into big fat alligator tears. “I have cancer.” I hated the very phrase, as if you were something that belonged to me.

Dear Cancer, I Might Miss You

Dear Cancer,

I have written this letter to you a thousand times in my head. Each time, I argued about how I felt about you. How could I be angry at something that takes such an impersonal form? You aren’t even real. You don’t have a soul.

I’m Positive I Hate You

Dear ALK Positive,

I guess it’s time we became acquainted.

You’ve chosen this body to be your vessel. It would have been nice if you’d asked before rudely invading. Even trying to hide while you spread yourself out across more space than you needed.

Dearest Cancer

Dear Cancer,

July 1, 2020. You entered my life like a subway train speeding to its next stop. You brought so many words. Terrifying words. Confusing words. Complicated words. Hormones. Invasive ductal carcinoma. Margins. Stages. Lymph nodes. Metastasis. Surgery.