Dear Cancer

Dear Cancer, Why am I Still Here?

Dear Cancer,

You thought you were going to take me out, but I am still here. Twelve years ago, when the doctors finally found you, I will admit you did have me there for a second (insert nervous laugh). The doctors were perplexed—they were not sure what they were looking for, and it took a painful six months to even get diagnosed. The doctor said, “You have Multiple Myeloma at 29 years old.”

Dear Cancer, You Were Never Invited

Dear Cancer,

A year ago you had the audacity to just storm into my life. You were never invited and you were definitely not expected. You just came in anyway. You have such nerve. Who does that? You have been really tough on me, but I tried to be tougher.

Dear Cancer, I’m Living Anyway

Dear Cancer, 

I knew we would meet one day. I can’t explain it, and others can’t understand, but you apparently knew too. You were the thing I was most afraid of, next to airplanes. When my surgeon told me you had arrived, I asked if my constant worry had manifested you into reality. He said he doesn’t believe in that, but if it were true, I could also manifest my way out of this. My first cancer lesson on perspective. 

Dear Cancer, You Were A Dictator

Dear Cancer, 

It feels as if you have been with me longer than six months, and that is quite literally because you have. You snuck in and allowed my body to become your ally, to get what you needed to survive. You told my physical being that it would be okay and you wouldn’t cause any problems.

Dear Cancer, Thank You for Teaching Me Patience

Dear Cancer,

I would often think of you before I knew you. When I was a child, I would think to myself, “I was one of six children. What are the odds that none of us got cancer?” As I got into my teenage years, the question then became “Which one of us?”

Dear Cancer, You Try to Take Away

Dear Cancer,

I have honestly feared you for as long as I can remember. A feeling of you meeting me along the way was consistently looming over me. So much so, that I can recall telling friends and family that I felt you would come for me, and I wondered if you already had.

Dear Cancer, You Took the Best Parts of Me

Cancer,

I cannot even begin to describe the absolute void that lives within me because of you. I have been physically rid of you for almost six years now, and yet somehow you still manage to wreak havoc on my soul.

Dear Cancer, You Stick to Me Like Glue

Dear Cancer,

My word, you really are a tricky little one. I don’t remember a life before you or without you. You seem to love to stick to me like glue. First popping out your dirty little head in 1998 when I was only four, taking my eye and my trust in my own body.

Cold & In the Wide-Open Air

Dear Cancer,
I am so far from
the me who sat in that chair
cold and so afraid.

Dear Cancer, We are Now Forever Intertwined

Dear Cancer,

I knew you were set to come after me. I mean you went after almost every other female in my family, so why wouldn’t you come after me?