Writing Through Cancer

“I guess I’ve become a cancer survivor,” my husband announced over our morning coffee.  It seemed strange to hear him say it, even though his use of the label is correct.  The National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship (NCCS) originally defined survivor as “any person diagnosed with cancer, from the time of initial diagnosis until his or her death.”  Less than two weeks after his surgery, he’d joined the ranks of those living with cancer, a survivor.

We received his pathologist’s report earlier last week, learning that his chances of recurrence in the next five years were lower than we expected, although he will be participating in a clinical trial at the recommendation of the doctor, which he readily agreed to do.  Minus one of his two kidneys post-surgery, you’d hardly know that a month ago, he was dogged by fear and worry.  Now, his mood is lighter, his humor has returned, and he’s begun to resume normal activity.  But our conversations are different–quieter in tone, deeper in subject matter, with a stronger sense of gratitude for the life we have and a determination to live as fully as we possibly can for as long as we can.

Cancer teaches us, whether we are the patient or the caregiver, about what’s important in our lives–what truly matters.   My husband, who rarely shows emotion, is much more likely to exhibit his softer side, whether he is relating a touching life story heard in his Toastmasters Club or has written notes of gratitude to the several Toronto friends who have offered their help and support to us in the past weeks.   Life, I think, seems much more precious to him in the wake of his cancer experience.

In the preface of her book, Survival Lessons (2015), Alice Hoffman wrote of her cancer journey and becoming a survivor, saying I forgot that our lives are made up of equal parts sorrow and joy, and that it is impossible to have one without the other.  This is what makes us human…I wrote to remind myself that in the darkest hour the roses still bloom, the stars still come out at night.  And to remind myself that, despite everything that was happening to me, there were still choices I could make.

Lynne Eldridge, MD, in her recent article about positive changes in people after a cancer diagnosis, stated “Research tells us that most people experience some degree of “post traumatic growth”…describing these changes with words and phrases such as:

• Silver linings
• The benefits of cancer
• “What cancer has taught me”
• Meaning making, sense-making, or benefit finding
• Life transforming changes
• The blessings of cancer

While she acknowledges not all cancer survivors experience positive personal growth, “one-half to two-thirds of survivors admit to some positive changes,” and find more the longer the time since their diagnoses.   Examples of these positive growth changes include:

A greater appreciation for life, enriched personal relationships, compassion for others, deepening spirituality and the discovery of “benefits”–or silver linings–in one’s cancer journey.  As one person said, “I wouldn’t wish cancer on anyone, but looking back, there are ways that I’m a better person than if I’d never had cancer.”

Dana Jennings, a New York Times editor, who published regular blog posts throughout his diagnosis, surgery and treatment for prostate cancer, reflected on life after cancer, saying, Living in the shadow of cancer has granted me a kind of high-definition gratitude. I’ve found that when you’re grateful, the world turns from funereal gray to incandescent Technicolor…The small moments of gratitude are the most poignant to me because they indicate that I’m still paying close attention to the life I’m living, that I haven’t yet succumbed to numbing obliviousness.

When you have cancer, when you’re being cut open and radiated and who knows what else, it can take a great effort to be thankful for the gift of the one life that we have been blessed with. Believe me, I know.

And sometimes, in the amnesia of sickness, we forget to be grateful. But if we let our cancers consume our spirits in addition to our bodies, then we risk forgetting who we truly are, of contracting a kind of Alzheimer’s of the soul.

And so to our lives. My husband and I are more aware now of our mortality, the reality of being human, growing older, and having survived more than one serious illness.  There’s a sense of peacefulness, perhaps, that has become more present in our day-to-day living than we knew in the years of chasing careers, moving across the country four times, and running as fast as we could.  Serious illness teaches you to slow down, smell those roses, and enjoy, truly enjoy, the simple pleasures found in your daily life.

We’re grateful for the fact that my husband’s cancer surgery was successful and for the fact that his chances of recurrence are slimmer than we thought.  We are focused more on the simple pleasures of living and being together, reminded again of the preciousness of life, family, and friends.  “Cancer is not a gift/but a lesson,” Judy Rohm writes in her poem, “The Lesson, “full of seeing now and living presently.”  (In:  The Cancer Poetry Project, V. 1, 2001).  Living fully, presently, is what we are striving to do in our lives.

This is what life does.  It lets you walk up to
the store to buy breakfast and the paper…

Life lets you take the dog for a walk down to the
pond, where whole generations of biological
processes are boiling beneath the mud…

…And then life lets you go home to think
about all this.  Which you do, for quite a long time.

Later, you wake up beside your old love, the one
who never had any conditions, the one who waited
you out.  This is life’s way of letting you know that you are lucky…

(In:   Our Post Soviet History Unfolds, 2005)

Writing Suggestions:

• Write about being a survivor of cancer and how having experienced cancer has change you:  your life, your outlook, how you approach each day.
• Have you become more or less grateful for your life post-cancer?  Why?
• What matters most to you in life now?  Try capturing your sentiments in a poem or personal essay.
• A way to begin?  Try making a list of “Before Cancer, I was…” then do the same with “After Cancer, I am…”  Choose one or two and develop those feelings into a narrative.