I wrote this several years ago. My feelings are still the same, despite recent “normal” imaging.
Perhaps I’m ready to share it now.
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My emotions tend to escalate the last few days before my annual MRI. Little things are more exciting or more annoying; the blasé “everything is okay” mask is even more tightly attached and denial is even more the coping mechanism of the day. By my MRI appointment time last Monday, I was more than ready to get it over with, and to get the hopefully good news. This was my eighth follow-up MRI, and there is a temptation to treat it as routine, to expect good results as a foregone conclusion. But the sword of recurrent cancer still—and always—hangs over my head. The MRI just calls attention to the thread that supports it; good results verify that the thread might be strong enough and the cancer sword might be parried a little longer.
It was in this climate, the emotional limbo between test and results, that I received news one of my “cancer family” had lost his battle. It always hurts to lose a friend, but when the friend is part of the unwilling but fiercely supportive cancer family, the hurt multiplies exponentially. My preferred support for all my friends has often been messages that say “sending COURAGE.” The last time I heard from Jared, he was thanking me for the courage, saying I had no idea how much he needed it. He had been talking about going back to work when his chemo was done. It didn’t occur to me he was so close to the end of his journey, and I was so wrapped up in my own hidden drama that I didn’t notice his subsequent absence from Facebook.
Today I received my official “no suspicious abnormalities” MRI results letter. I was expecting good news. But my good news was bittersweet. Why am I still here? Why am I still here when so many of my “cancer family” are not? I reacted to cancer with anger, defiance, denial. I was never “the good patient;” I’m sure my physicians hated seeing me on their appointment schedule since I kept telling them that their research groups needed to get to work. That treatment entailing “kill the patient and hope the cancer dies first” is not good enough. “Slash, burn, and poison—medieval torture with plastic reconstruction, pain and nausea medicines” isn’t good enough. Calling a 10% gain in five-year survival rate from medicines with horrible life-changing side-effects a good thing, is not good enough.
This January will mark nine years since I found the initial evidence of cancer. I refuse to say cancer was a blessing in disguise. I liked the person I was B.C. (Before Cancer) The person I am now is unrecognizable in so many ways. It’s as if cancer won; that Evelyn no longer exists. But the New Evelyn is here, fighting back, living in spite of it.
RIP my many “family” members who aren’t still in the battle: I’m still here; I wish all of you were too.
Hang in there, all of you who are still here with me. I hope you live forever.
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P. S. It’s been over 15 years now. There haven’t been any detectable recurrences. But . . . My remaining brain has to work harder for any creative endeavors. Even keeping my weight stable requires herculean effort. I miss my brain; I miss my body, I miss my youth, I miss my personality. I’m still angry that keeping my heart beating is considered a successful treatment. Please get to work, Researchers. An actual CURE is what we need most.