Breast Kept Secrets: Time Doesn’t Heal All Wounds
I’ve been silent for a long while now. And I think the general assumption when silence happens after something traumatic is that life has resumed normalcy and the afflicted person has healed. They no longer have wounds to write about or lessons to lend to their audience. In my case, and I think in a lot of cases, this couldn’t be further from the truth.
Breast Kept Secret #17: Life After Cancer is Harder Than Life With Cancer
Yes. I said it. It’s bold. But it’s true. Life is really fucking hard right now. And it’s for a lot of complicated, strange, personal, ugly reasons. But most of all it’s because I’m just now processing what I went through for the better part of the year. My brain is now allowed to focus on more than surviving. And so it’s slowly leaking out the pent up sadness, loss, grief, anger, confusion, and resentment that I didn’t allow myself to feel for nine months. And while all of these unprocessed emotions and events were stuffed deep into my cells, they grew bigger and more profound. They became intertwined with things that I saw as certain and unchanging. And so now, I’m left questioning everything. AKA: I’m barely keeping my shit together.
This post-cancer world is lonely. Naturally, your support slips away once the battle is over. But in most senses, the battle has just begun. I’m still navigating weekly doctor’s appointments. I’m still healing. I’m still exhausted most days. And most of all, I’m trying my hardest to resume life. Instead of one smooth start, it goes in fits and spurts and sometimes I’m in reverse for far too long.
I was catching up on A Million Little Things, that sob-inducing show on ABC. One of the characters beat breast cancer for the second time. A line from the show summed up the state of my life so well:
For cancer survivors, there is no life without cancer. Cancer will always be in your life.
It’s this gritty realization that I can’t forget cancer or leave it behind. It’s the rest of my life. THIS is the rest of my life. And if my doctor’s did their job right, I have a lot of life left.
It’s far more than the physical symptoms of life after cancer. My body hurts because my soul hurts. And my soul hurts from this crushing feeling of being robbed. I don’t have the body of a 27 year old. I don’t have the luxury of being care free. I don’t get to go on dates and not rehearse how I’m going to talk about cancer. And when a date goes well, I get to question if it was because I’m truly worthwhile or if I’m the pathetic cancer girl they graced with their presence.
The moving on, the moving past isn’t a reality for life after cancer. It’s more about undoing all the pent up pain. Knowingly ripping open wounds and writhing with pain because it’s healthier to deal with it now rather than later.
And that’s the ugly truth that no one talks about or prepares you for. You race to get to the finish line of treatment and cancer. The crowds disperse from cheering you on. The aid stations are packed up. The race director is now focused on getting another race up and going successfully. And it’s just you. Standing feet from the finish line with your shiny medal. Wondering what the hell to do next.
It’s incredibly painful, friends. This life after cancer. When you float so high from being cancer free, the crash is long and slow. But you have to crash. You have to process all this shit you went through. It’s unfair. You’ll scream “WHY ME” at the world. And I think, just like racing to finish treatment, every day that little flicker of light becomes incrementally bigger, even if you have to squint to see it.
