Questions & answers... sort of

Slowly, but surely, I'm recognizing the multiple ways cancer is affecting and changing my life. I had this thought yesterday evening that developed into what I think may be an overriding realization for anyone with a cancer diagnosis, although I think the younger you are upon diagnosis, the harder it may be to handle it and come to terms with it. When you're diagnosed with cancer, this major new element is brought into your life, if not taking over it! But what cancer does is it introduces a number of dichotomies through which very fine lines are drawn. Your thoughts and emotions become delicate balances, swinging from one opinion to the next, and slowly leveling out as you develop your appropriate coping mechanisms for the numerous issues that cancer introduces to you and forces you to face.

Not that I equate cancer with this at all, but death is one of the first and foremost issues that those diagnosed face. Whether it's due to in fact a terminal prognosis, or simply coming to terms with having a life-threatening illness, death can very much become a major part of the picture for cancer patients. Even after all the chemotherapy, after the surgeries, after the radiation, death still hangs around. Five years into remission death (by way of relapse) can still be in the picture. Cancer forces you to become a lot closer to death both literally and figuratively, physically and emotionally; and once you close in on it more, I don't know if you can ever truly step away. There are millions of survivors out there which is fantastic, but I gather that regardless of remission time, there's always the chance of relapse, and in that chance, a more fatalist view on things constantly hangs over you. It may not always be directly over you, but it's still there, hanging around, lurking in the background, waiting for a moment of weakness, emotional despair. I know there are many survivors out there who get frustrated with charities and foundations and their bold statements of "Fighting for the Cure" etc. because honestly, can anyone really, truly be 'cured' of cancer? No. Relapse and recurrence are a constant fear - through checks, scans, you name it. They may get farther apart, they may fall more into the background as time goes on, but think about when you go to the doctor and have to have blood drawn. For me, I'm going to have to do that a lot, and probably more often than you (right now I'm at once a week..... beat that!); but even as I have it done less and less: once a month, once every three months, once every six months, once a year, etc. No matter what, every time my blood is drawn, from now on it's not just a blood check, it's a cancer check.

Death could be right in front of you, or just around the corner. Maybe it's not, in my case it's still very far down the line. But in being diagnosed I faced death. Not directly, but sort of. I was told that if I had flown back to DC that night (I was supposed to fly back to school as it was the end of my Easter break) I wouldn't have made it. It wasn't made clear to me that I would've outright died on the plane, maybe it was more that I would've been at risk to contract something from someone else that my body wouldn't have been able to fight since my immune system was so compromised. I'm not sure, but either way, if my leukemia wasn't caught when it was, who knows how things would've played out.

Now in being treated, death oftentimes remains in the picture. Especially in my first year when the drugs were much heavier, the effects were much more extreme, the procedures more frequent, and the radiation topped it all off. I may not have been facing death, but I often felt like it. Wiped out, throwing up, unable to support myself, sometimes, in too much pain to even move, speak, or eat. I think that for everyone being treated for cancer at times it's almost as if you're living and dying at the same time. You live from your treatment, but you die from your cancer. You have to learn how to balance these two opposites so that neither takes over the other. Your life becomes this seesaw between the two forces: swinging up and down, eventually balancing, but always being weighted down with life on one end, and death on the other.

It's morbid, I know, but it's one of the many things that slaps you in the face upon diagnosis - as if the diagnosis wasn't enough! It calls so many other things into question: faith, fate, relationships, finances, luck, your own sense of self, any and all former notions you had 'figured out'. Cancer changes everything. I find I can never label it good or bad, a gift or a curse, nothing like that. It's unique. It's a unique experience that provides a unique perspective, and not just for the patient but I think also for those affected around him or her. Especially when you're young, it forces issues that you probably wouldn't otherwise have to deal with, whether it's facing death, or simply becoming an 'adult' a little faster than you'd planned through the forced dealings with doctors, insurance, patient advocacy, etc.

Life versus death. Fate versus luck. Trust versus distrust and thus having to live in some sort of fear. Strength versus weakness. God versus the universe. Self-esteem versus the mirror.

Lucky for me I'm a Libra. My astrological sign is symbolized by "scales of balance" which "represent the balance [I] continually seek in [my] self and [my] life." So maybe I'm slightly more predisposed to stabilize these many dichotomies that have been forced upon me. That doesn't make it any easier per se, but slowly and surely I think I may be gaining some ground. The ruminations are giving way to brief moments of clarity. So what's the secret to life? I have no idea. How do you deal with cancer? I can't answer that. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time... ; )