Posted by: julia
on Jan 22, 2012
Today is my birthday (yay!), but for those of you who've been around for awhile, you know it's also the anniversary of my cancer diagnosis (Stage 2 Hodgkin's Lymphoma). Of particular note today, however, is that it's also a Big Number anniversary: 20 years. 20 years! That's a damn big number. 20 years since I heard a new doctor in a new town say to me, "well, I've got good news and bad news. The bad news is...it's cancer. The good news is, if you had to get any kind of cancer, this is the kind to get." 20 years have passed since that big-fat-pushpin-on-the-map-of-life moment, and boy howdy am I a different, more evolved, more experienced person now. I feel both pleased and disquieted that so much time has gone by: pleased because, yeah, I kicked cancer's ass and lived to tell the tale, and disquieted because woah, how'd I get old enough to be able to so easily and clearly recall something that happened 20 years ago?
Because it feels like only yesterday, in some ways. I can so easily call up the anxiety, fear, physical pain, and grief; the courage I had to summon and sustain; the love I was surrounded with; and the sense of vertiginous change touching and transforming everything I thought I had or knew. It was a potent, transformative cocktail whose hangover will probably last my whole life, though it certainly is fading with time and with the addition of other pushpin moments to the mix. I'll always have that "cancer survivor" identity with me, even though it's not a central one to me anymore except in particular times and places.
One thing is for certain, I'm still glad that I have this personally defining moment to come back to every year, something to really remind me that life is short and uncertain and beautiful and kind (yes, kind) in its random assignation of growth-inducing suffering. I didn't enjoy the suffering, but damn I appreciate having suffered, grown, and moved on. Here's to the next 20 years--may they go by as juicy and full as the last 20, and give me as many opportunities to keep evolving as these last 20 have.
Posted by: julia
on Mar 08, 2011
Today I went to my yearly oncology checkup (for those new to this relatively old story, the short version is this: diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma on the day of my 23rd birthday, treated successfully with surgery and radiation therapy, learned many interesting things during the journey from health to illness and back to health.) Overall it was a very short, easy appointment, with a doctor I respect and like a lot, and as it has happened for many, many years now (I’m coming up on 19 years in remission), I was given a hearty “you look healthy and good” and sent on my way. (Though the one disquieting note was when I asked the doctor when the likely time frame was for secondary cancers to start showing up, and she said “twenty years”. Doh. Better be religious about those mammograms.)
Though it was pretty much all good and I felt (and still am feeling) particularly grateful and happy to be alive (as one naturally does when reminded of a time when mortality was most keenly felt), I just somehow can’t put today’s appointment in the trashcan of forgetfulness without acknowledging how it felt.
How did it feel? Well as always when I have these appointments (or any other major medical experience), it brought up a layered, chunky lasagna of feelings and memories about the whole “cancer experience”. (Yeah, I could have used a different metaphor, maybe a sweeter one like cake or a geological one or something, but there’s something I like about comparing a medical experience to a labor-intensive Italian dinner. So sue me.)
