Cancer in the Time of Coronavirus
Somewhere, in an alternate universe, I am watching the Summer Olympics in a crowded sports bar, with shoulder-length blonde hair and not a care in the world. Some stocky gymnast is propelling himself between the parallel bars while I sip on a Corona and Lime, blissfully unaware of the irony. The image is a stark contrast from the current reality, where I am brushing handfuls of pink hair off the back of my neck and resting between the parallel bars of my bed frame. I wouldn’t necessarily choose this timeline, but the relentless optimist in me can’t help but see some silver linings in it. The cosmic forces of the Universe have struck my life in tandem with two life-altering diseases, both beginning with the letter c. Cancer, which I already have, and Coronavirus, which I must now avoid getting at all costs.
Sometimes life takes a sudden turn and makes you into a person that you barely recognize. Usually, these curve balls are individual and people navigate them in their own seasons; but, every now and then, there is a collective shock to the system which throws all our lives off-kilter. In my case, there were both: a global pandemic and a individual diagnosis. 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.
This year, time is flowing both fast and slow, March feels like yesterday and February feels like a lifetime ago. When the world shut down on the East Coast in early March, I didn’t take it well. I am a person who thrives with structure, and without my various activities and responsibilities to propel my productivity, I was starting to fall into lethargy and depression. I am also a shameless extrovert and I start to wilt quickly when I am deprived of human interaction. I don’t have to tell you why the conditions of the world would not have been ideal for someone like me, because you all lived through it and it’s likely that you struggled too, as we all do in times of crisis.
Just as I was starting to find a new equilibrium in isolation, I was consumed completely by the events of my own life which very effectively distracted me from the heaviness of the world at large. The deafening roar of my own diagnosis drowned out the sound of a global pandemic. When I think about Cancer and the COVID-19 pandemic, I’d rather have neither, but having them simultaneously is actually working out better than I expected. At the peak of my emotional distress about my diagnosis I was usually distraught, at best numb and at worst hysterical. During this time, I was also working from home and very thankful for the privacy.
In addition, I was inadvertently getting much more socialization than the average quarantiner because I was going to the doctor basically every day and I was starting to make friends with the nurses.
In a clever twist of fate, Coronavirus solved the problem of having to face people about my cancer diagnosis before I was ready and cancer solved the problem of feeling socially isolated during the pandemic.
Furthermore, any plans that I may have had for the summer and beyond were cancelled because of the virus. They would have been canceled whether I was sick or not, and that made the loss of normal things hurt less. I imagine I would have felt a lot more isolated, if the world had kept spinning while my world stopped.
In that way, the collective grief we are all feeling from COVID-19 has made my personal grief a little lighter in contrast.
It’s not all rainbows and butterflies, and even my insistent positivity should be tempered with realism. As the world starts to reopen and my friends begin hosting backyard barbecues and planning trips to the shore, I am feeling more FOMO than I was in March. I also know that I will be much more at risk than most people if I am exposed to COVID-19, which is scary. Even though my low white-blood-cell count is invisible and painless, it is the side effect of chemo that I hate the most, because it has kept me isolated in a time when any fraction of normalcy is priceless.
Though it is sometimes difficult, I don’t regret anything I am going through, because I know that lessons are learned through suffering. I remember what it feels like to look back on a challenging time and know that it helped forge me into the woman I am today. What if cancer is the answer to my prayers? A way to slow down my life and live more authentically. What if cancer is helping me to see value in myself in a new way, and encouraging me to focus on the parts of my life that are most meaningful? What if it is helping to reinvigorate my passions and project myself into the world more purely?
It feels good to really be focusing on myself for once, even if it isn’t under ideal circumstances. If nothing else, I know that life is for the living, and that my life is not to be lived in vain.
I am still learning about how this journey is supposed to change me, but I have a feeling that it will mold me into a person who is more amazing than the girl sipping beer and watching the Olympics could have ever been.
