A poem about life after cancer

In the most difficult year of my life, I have more to be thankful for than ever before and there is more beauty in my life than I ever imagined. Challenging days have come and gone but what always seems to remain is a profound and overwhelming sense of gratitude for all the people in my life who have showed me so much grace and love this year.

I know this all sounds miserable, but that’s just because being in the hospital is naturally awful. It’s no reflection on the facility or the staff, it’s just the truth. In fact, the nurses were the highlight of my stay – they laughed with me, brought heating packs for my stomach, and collected stool samples with a grace and dignity that can only be described as saintly.

While it feels like very little has happened in the last several months, I realize, upon reflection, that quite a lot has happened and that the abundance of free time in my life right now has made events seem insignificant in the expanse.

You would think that experiencing a personal crisis, like a cancer diagnosis, would only amplify and exaggerate the chaos of a collective disaster like the COVID-19 pandemic, but sometimes opposing forces absorb shock. Something about my reaction to these colliding events was equal and opposite, which oddly, diffused them both.

To someone who doesn’t think about cancer much, chemotherapy seems like a pretty straight forward concept. It’s a treatment used for cancer patients, that makes them vomit and lose their hair. Right? As it turns out, it’s a little bit more complicated than that - there are about as many different types of chemo as there are different types of cancer.

I had always imagined that kids would be a part of my life some day, but as a single, career-focused, twenty-something, my family plans were abstract and distant. It was strange and painful to think that my disease might take away that unfulfilled promise of children. I was prepared to lose weight, my appetite and even my hair, but the thought of losing my fertility hadn’t crossed my mind and it was a hard pill to swallow.

I don’t blame people for not knowing what to say. I’m sure I wouldn’t know what to say either, but there were definitely some responses that made me feel better than others. I wanted to share some insights that might help people to navigate these conversations better.

Grappling with [my diagnosis] over the next few days would come and go in waves, hitting me in spells of hysteria and frank contemplative calm; In slow tears falling down my face as I drafted a work email and empty stares at my bedroom ceiling. Sometimes, it came as dismissal or optimism and other times in sharp unwelcome pangs, like the thought that my 25th birthday may be the last I have the privilege of celebrating.