Surviving

I was thinking the other day about how in most media portrayals of someone with cancer, the person dies in the end.

It seems there are not nearly as many portrayals of what happens when a person lives. And I think it’s important to know that cancer isn’t over when the treatment ends.

Now please hear me: Life, survivorship, is something that not everyone gets to experience. This is not an attempt at complaint or a plea for pity. Rather, I would like to share my experience of what it is like to be a survivor.

The “fighting” doesn’t end once the chemotherapy or radiation is over.

When I finished chemo, everyone seemed to be SO EXCITED. But all I felt was exhaustion. I had been pushed, it seemed, to the very edge of death, and was expected to be excited about it. It felt like people were congratulating me for surviving a prison sentence or making it through my own funeral. I’m not angry that people were excited. I’m writing this to confess that I wasn’t excited. I was just tired.

It’s been more than three months since I finished treatment, and I am still tired. I can’t go for long walks or stand too much because my feet become numb from the lingering neuropathy. I still get hot flashes that leave me so exhausted that I need to sit down. They wake me up throughout the night, too. Sometimes I need to rest halfway through doing the dishes because I’m suddenly too exhausted to finish. And those are only the physical side effects. There are plenty of emotional issues as well, such as fear of the cancer recurring.

Now please hear me again. I do not want your pity. That’s not why I’m sharing this.

I guess I just want to tell an accurate story of what it means for some of us to survive.

When I was going through chemo, it used to drive me nuts when people would call me courageous. “I’m not courageous,” I would say. “It’s either go to chemo or die. There’s nothing courageous about that.”

But as the months have gone on, I’m realizing that for some, living is a courageous thing. Making the choice to get out of bed even when you don’t feel like entering the world of the living with all its hurt and pain and illness is a courageous move indeed.

I’m thankful for the things that do (with God’s grace) get me out of bed, the things that are more important than my numb feet: my nephews and niece, sisters and parents, ice cream with friends, the chance to write, a good cup of coffee, Indian food, and so much more.

But I believe it is important to send this little note into the world to say that for some, “survive” cannot be used in the past tense. For I have not survived: but I am surviving.