yes, i’m STILL on cancer treatment.

shocker of the century: i’m still on cancer treatment. yup, STILL. probably because i seem fine, you’ve forgotten. probably because i’m not in canada any longer, you’ve forgotten. probably because i am not overly open with my distress, you’ve forgotten. probably because i don’t look sickly, you’ve forgotten.

i totally get it. i project an image of strength, resilience, and independence to the outside world. it is so easy to assume i am okay – and that of course, i will beat this thing. but, i still live with a constant underlying feeling of threat to my survival and my sense of self. and none of it is my fault. i get to blame melanoma. and then i get angry, but that’s for another post.

i have been on treatment for nine months. NINE MONTHS. while everyone has been moving forward with plans, building families, falling in love… i’ve been going for infusions, managing doctors and appointments, going to counseling to manage the distress related to the turn my life has taken, and generally trying not to go crazy. in the time it takes to grow a baby, i’ve been treading water.

in honor of brene brown’s new netflix special (and my counselor who suggested a post on this topic), i’m going to be vulnerable with my emotions:

i feel isolated and forgotten. i feel alone. when my news was potentially bad, and i was in crisis, everyone rallied around me. but now, nine months in – it feels like everyone’s lives have continued, and i’m at a standstill. i am viscerally aware that SO many people are going through hard times. i don’t pretend to be the center of the universe. i know my story of pain is just one story of so many. i am doing my best to do the deep emotional work, to lean into the sharp edges, to advocate for myself, and to reach out when i need more connection.

on top of this, the world is SO full of triggers. mother’s day. anniversaries of diagnosis day. people around me dying of cancer. i should have anticipated that may would be a hard month for me. but this is my first time. i don’t know how to do this.

one year ago friday, i was at the gym. i was strong, feeling empowered, and on the verge of a life changing summer. in between bench press sets, i felt a hard lump in my left armpit. i knew instantly. that evening, my mom told me that my dad’s cancer had returned. i didn’t even mention the lump i had felt. the feeling i had that day, on may 10th, 2018 was utter terror. and on may 14th, 2018, collapsing on the floor of the hospital, receiving the results of my PET scan. followed by surgery, biopsy, diagnosis, realizing the cancer had been growing for a year. honestly, i barely remember those days last year. my timeline may even be slightly off. i think i have blocked them out of my memory – it was all too traumatic. but being confronted with these dates again, a year later, has been harder than i expected. i feel a sense of inevitability that i will find another tumor. that there is something wrong in my left armpit, or that my left breast isn’t quite right, or that i’m going to miss it again. my response to these dates is irrational given that my chances of finding/missing something in my body is no different than it was last month.

other triggers this weekend include mother’s day. what a shit day for anyone yearning to be a mother. or anyone who has lost their mother. or worse, anyone who has lost a child.

last week, i learned that a young woman i had met socially in bangkok over the years had died of cervical cancer. we weren’t facebook or instagram friends, so i did not even know she had been diagnosed. i was stunned. i remember meeting her, and being absolutely captivated by her energy. she literally had a gravitational force, and a spirit that brought people together. she was diagnosed on september 11th, 2018, right around the day that i started treatment. and now she is gone. dead. never coming back. everyone always says how amazing people are after they die, but it can’t always be true. some people that die must actually be bad people, or ordinary people, or boring people? but not her – she was magic. her death has brought up a lot of questions for me: when i die, what will people say about me? will it be true, or just what people say? why is she gone, but i’m still alive? what if that happens to me? everyone who knew her assumed she would absolutely have to be fine. that there was no imaginable way that someone as incredible as her could not be on this earth.

i am so grateful for my counselor who helped me to see that having all these triggers come at the same time has activated my threat to survival. which is why i feel anxious, uncomfortable, and hypersensitive to my bodily sensations. getting my emotional experience validated doesn’t fix it, but it helps.

i realize this isn’t the most uplifting of posts. i promise i don’t feel like this all the time. but i do feel this way now, and given how i present myself to the world – i think it is important for the people that love me to know the whole story. if you are reading this and you don’t know me very well, the lesson is that people with cancer don’t just need you when they are in crisis mode; they need you all along the way, especially at times that can be hard: when treatment is still going on after a long time, when treatment finishes, on anniversaries of difficult days, or just when they are having a hard time for no reason at all. also remember, that not everyone with cancer is going to look very ill, particularly if they are on some of the newer forms of treatment like immunotherapy.

note: i don’t expect anyone to remember hard dates. i can barely remember my own birthday, let alone all the hard days in the lives of the people that i love. part of my job, if i need more support, is to ask for it. in the last few days, i have reached out to a couple of people telling them that i am struggling. through these conversations i have felt acknowledged and heard. we aren’t mind readers, and we shouldn’t expected to be.

this weekend, please reach out friends and loved ones who might be struggling on mother’s day. it is a hard day for anyone who has lost their mother, who is yearning to be a mother, who has experience pregnancy loss, or who has a child that has died.

*this post is dedicated to sweet william jude. and, it is dedicated to mother’s everywhere who are mothering children that they cannot hold in their arms. my parents are currently on their first international trip in over a year, and they are in paris! this photo was taken there on my last visit in april, 2015. it says, “l’amour court les rues”, which means: love runs the streets. it does.