It’s National Cancer Survivor’s Day….and as it turns out June is Cancer Survivor’s Month (I just learned that this is a thing!).
I know it sounds odd, but I still bristle at the word and I still don’t really know how to articulate why. But I guess, even though I don’t really know how I feel about it all yet, I’m learning to embrace it. So today, on this National Cancer Survivor’s Day, here are some of my thoughts.
Surviving is…
Being grateful to have more days with my people. Loving them. Living life together with them. Learning from them.
Being grateful for the grit that comes with this story. When brought to the end of self, totally transformed, no next step is easy.
Being grateful for a medical team that values my life and my dignity. Having seen me at my most vulnerable in my most vulnerable.
Being grateful for the identity that I can claim. “Cancer” “Survivor” each word holding a profound depth of meaning.
Being grateful for scars and a bald head and torched skin and a confused immune system and daily pain. Not because of what they are but for the story they tell.
Surviving is…
Complex. A massive both+and. Wonderful. Hard. I’m grateful for the title. I know many who wish their loved ones could have it, too. I don’t take for granted each breath I get or step I take. I see things different and I like that. I live changed and I like how. At the same time, I would love not to be a member of this group. I would love if “all better” was actually a thing. I would love if surviving didn’t mean something absolutely atrocious had to happen. And I would love if my reality of surviving didn’t come with such pain….literal and figurative, physical and emotional, for myself and for my loved ones.
Surviving is…
Living fearlessly authentic, living wholly changed and living purposefully on purpose.
If you know cancer survivors, ask them to tell you their story. Ask them how they feel and what their experience is. Ask them what surviving means to them (and resist the temptation to tell them what surviving means to them). Be okay with what they share. Value what they offer. And ask them how you can honor their survivorship.
(June 5, 2021 – I didn’t write yesterday because I was with my family all day and my friends all night. A wonderful day of being present with my people. I did add below, though, June 5 from both 2018 and 2019)
Wear a Sign :: June 5, 2018
I’m in a weird place… I was at a training today with some of my colleagues in a room with many others I didn’t know. I was with some that know me and my story and with many others that have no idea who I am or what my story is. It’s strange going out in public and looking the way I do. It’s kinda weird for a few reasons.
1. I sometimes “forget” that I don’t have a “normal” look and so I’ll just go about my business and when people look at me a little extra long (or they look away super fast) I am reminded that I look different than people might expect. Are they thinking, “Oh, she’s edgy…I mean, she’s got tattoos, a nose piercing…” but then you look at the way I dress and, well, “edgy” doesn’t really come to mind……. I suppose I look like a walking contradiction if you don’t know my story. Which kind of brings up my next reason for feeling strange.
2. While a pixie cut or my current length of hair can be seen as normal to some, it feels odd to be in a place where I wouldn’t choose this look for myself. Ever. So, my inner monologue is interesting because I want to say out loud, “Yeah, I know, my hair is not what you’d expect. I didn’t choose this look, it was forced upon me by cancer.” But in that, my inner monologue is making some pretty big assumptions that people actually care what I think about my own look. Which brings up yet another oddity in all of this…
3. It feels really hard to go out into public because a part of me wants to wear a big sign that says, “I’m battling cancer” and another part of me is thankful I don’t have to. It’s strange to be in a place where I want my story to be known and I want to shout it from the rooftops but then in the very same breath, not really wanting any attention about it at all. My whole world has been flipped upside down, inside out and backwards and my whole experience of life is now filtered through this battle. How I see things, how I interact with people, how I talk to myself, how I make decisions…all have been radically impacted by this storm. So it feels totally appropriate and honestly, honoring to myself and my story, to “wear the sign” (figuratively speaking, of course). Yet, that would mean that I would make every interaction about myself and that is SO not my heart. …Soooo, how do I honor myself and my story and my storm while also not needing to share it in every interaction.
Do I want to “wear the sign” so it justifies how I look? Do I want to “wear the sign” because I want people to know ME, the real ME, the one that values authenticity, honesty, resilience? Do I want to “wear the sign” because I want people to know I HAVE a story and by valuing my own, I will value theirs? Do I want to “wear the sign” because I need validation? Do I want to “wear the sign” because hearing encouragement and empathy is so very good for my soul and so very healing? As I am sitting here writing this, my heart is certainly feeling all of these things. And yet, my head is saying to me, “Maybe you don’t have to wear a sign to live changed and allow your story to speak for itself…” So, I think I am going to chew on that one for awhile….. Interesting thought, Brain…..
Only a Few Things :: June 6, 2018
There are only a few random little things on my mind tonight as I write. One, I am so grateful. Thank you, Ashleigh, for helping organize meals for us during my upcoming recovery. Thank you, Aunt Sue, for getting that ball rolling before even I remembered to update the calendar. Thank you family and friends for helping us out, yet again…for being so constant and supportive and loving to us through this rough storm by way of praying, encouraging words and tangible things like dinners. My gratitude for each of you is so much more than words can capture. And mom, you are absolutely the most generous and selfless person on this planet. Thank YOU. For E.V.E.R.Y.T.H.I.N.G. Two, tonight I am really contemplative on how far I’ve (we’ve) come in this. 19 nights until my surgery…and I remember all to well the thought that this reconstructive surgery would never come. I’m sitting here in my chair writing this and remembering my mastectomy recovery…the hours and hours I sat here. Tears streaming down my cheeks. The uncertainties of what chemo would be. What radiation was like. Knowing that in a distant future (one that felt eons away) another surgery would happen. Sitting here thinking about the word cancer…being shaken to the core hearing that word for the first time. And the second. And third. And tenth. Acknowledging that “chemo” was now going to be a word I knew intimately. Sitting here spending time in the quiet. Listening to the music a friend would send me. Writing. (Thank you, Marilyn, for encouraging me to write. I am forever grateful for that advice.) I sat in this chair a lot throughout my chemo treatments, too. Especially those first few when I wasn’t able to sleep in my bed yet. I remember feeling so terrible. Crying at the thought of eating. Wishing those days away and wishing for heaven. It’s so surreal that I am sitting here writing about these things now in my past. I feel ever so present still in this cancer story, but how incredible that I have some big things in my rear view mirror. I remember writing about how I couldn’t wait until things were in my rear view mirror……..Thank you, Jesus. Three, I am acknowledging my anxiety about this upcoming huge surgery. I find myself waking up more at night and struggling to quiet my mind and heart, struggling to get back to sleep. I’m not so much kept awake by the surgery itself, rather I am noticing that my anxiety is around the actual getting to the table. A lot can happen in a day. I have to be very mindful about putting into practice all that the Lord has been teaching me through this – Be where my feet are; Don’t look for the end of the bridge, just focus on the rung I’m on currently; Trust that what occurs is designed specifically for me; Value the purpose of the waiting………. But those are so hard.
Please pray for my surgeons, Dr. Chris Williams and Dr. Jeremy Williams (who are not actually brothers). 🙂 Pray that they remain well and protected. For their families. For their minds and hearts. Pray for me in that same way – that I remain well and protected for my family and for our hearts and minds. Pray that we all “get to that day”…
Albert, Tattoos and Magic :: June 5, 2019
Yet another incredible human being woven into my story…. I met my mastectomy tattoo artist tonight, Albert, and he is awesome. His talent is astoundingly amazing and I cannot wait to see the design he comes up with. He started to draw some ideas as we talked and it offered a glimpse of the magic that is undoubtedly awaiting me. We talked spirituality, we talked symbolism, we talked dark and light and good and evil and purpose and pain. It was a new kind of vulnerability trusting him with my story and having to show him my scars but the authenticity that radiated from his own story confirmed in my soul that we were meant to meet for such a time as this. Grateful. What a gift.
Stranded :: June 6, 2019
Today was hard. And I’m feeling “stranded”.
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