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February 9, 2022

“A Distant Cancer?” discusses some of the misconceptions and the complicated realities of cancer recurrence.

Photo by Thirdman on Pexels.

A distant memory.

Survivorship.

Thrive-or-ship.”

“Beating cancer.”

You expect our jubilant response?

(As if tying our pink ribbons “around the old oak tree” wasn’t time-consuming enough).

Yes, I’m a breast cancer survivor. Yes, I’m trying not to have to deal with recurrence. Yes, I’m a bit cranky about that reality.

And your point is…?

It would be lovely if cancer could simply be a distant memory for us. Like a bad mullet hair cut we were talked into as adolescents in the 1980s. It would be great if our cancer battles were a “one and done” reality. Okay, we’ve finished that now. Lesson learned. We’re inoculated and immune from any repeat performance.

The distant cancer issue? What’s the problem in sharing the joy of us being “cancer-free?”

First, The- CPTSD- in- the- C-of-Cancer-of-it all…

Ah, trauma, not just for abuse, muggings, and accidents anymore!

To the well-intentioned out there: your comments about whether we’re going to be confronted with life- or- death circumstances often do more harm than good. I know you want to be supportive, a cheerleader, telling us, “Go, Team!” as we keep living on. You may think your comments of “That’s so great to hear!” help and encourage us when we tell you what “year” survivorship marker we have hit. You think you’re inspiring us to do more yoga, eat more kale, and keep more gratitude journals, all because of your comments that put cancer in the past.

Truth? Often, your approach annoys us; it’s tolerable, at best.

Maybe we’d love to tell you what, exactly, we secretly think about your “Go, Team” enthusiasm. It’s just that we don’t want to add still more trauma to our pre-existing trauma. We are shell-shocked. We are tired. And have had it with performing as trained seals to your pep talks.

Your Definition of “Near” and “Far” Survivorship is Different from Ours:

As a kid, I remember watching a Sesame Street bit, employing lovable blue muppet, Grover. He was teaching kids the difference between near and far. The famous character would run right up to the camera, declaring “Near-r-r-r-r!” And then, he’d race several feet back, until he was a tiny blue splotch. We’d then hear his faint, “Far-r-r-r!” It seemed to go back and forth like this for a while.

I often muse about Grover concerning the survivorship milestone. Is it a case of “cancer in the rearview mirror may appear closer than it is?” For those of us, bombarded with diagnosis anniversaries, surgery anniversaries, chemo anniversaries, and radiation anniversaries, and of course, the “official, being cancer-free” anniversaries, each of us, like Grover, could be yelling “Near” or “Far” from a different place and perspective.

That’s because we are, many times, still traumatized by what we have been through. And there is no timetable for this. It can be years or even decades later.

Maybe you think we have enough time and unaffected life under our survivorship belts. Not necessarily. We are changed from the experience in a way that no cheery sentiments can really help.

To you, it may look like we have victoriously been cancer-free for ten years! Wow! How wonderful! But to us, perhaps, we can only associate that milestone with a chastising lecture from our specialist, further feeding us with doubt and fear for the future. That ten-year milestone? It can feel like it happened today, with its death threats attached. The celebratory was complicated by the scary.

And, to one degree or another, that’s what most of us, on our cancer survivorship tightropes, walk. “Yay, life!” But also, “Yikes! Death!”  Mortality thoughts can puncture the “Congrats” balloons.

We’re so sorry to tell you that. We know you spent money on them.

“Distant” is Not 100% Possible, as Long as We Live in Our Bodies:

All better now! Presto Change-o!

Just like that!

Let’s face it, often, you, the curious onlookers, be you our loved ones, our friends and family, or the acquaintances and strangers we encounter on a daily basis, seem to judge us by how we look and by how we’re doing in life. If it appears we have “beaten cancer,” that we’re happily married, raising children, working at a career, taking care of the family pet, then the message may ring out, “Success! Cancer-free! Back to normal! In the past! Healthy from here on out!”

(That’s a lot to sky write, by the way).

And, for us, that is a message that is even more exhausting and difficult to convincingly achieve- and soothe- you, the curious onlooker. And you, by the way, desperately want our assurance that things are “okay.”

And here is where we’d like you, the curious, and yes, maybe, the loving, onlooker, to ask yourself, “Who is that assurance for?”

Dig deep. It probably isn’t for us, even if you love us. You want us to be okay for you. Cancer-free for you. Not dying for you.

You, perhaps, want cancer to only exist in a distant land, because that means it will never come close to invading your homestead.

But you see, concerning the sense of “invasion.” it’s too late for us. Despite the house, the career, the family, the Golden Retriever, or the so-called, normal-looking body, we have been invaded. We have the thousand-yard stare when we look at life now. We have the permanently changed body, with its new normal, it’s new side effects and fallout. When we move and breathe, we have reminders. When we dress and undress, we have reminders. When we do our typical routines, we have reminders. Plus, often, we also now have the new mortality thoughts, happening daily. We have learned a word we never wanted to add to our vocabulary, as we move and breathe, think and act: recurrence.

“What if?”

“It’s back.”

“I’m dying.”

“I’m scared.”

These are a few of the definitions of our new vocabulary word now.

“Distant” is not listed within those definitions.

As human beings, we want the magical thinking of being “cured” and problem- free to be real. We want pain and fear to be forever banished from our minds and thoughts. Cancer, however, alters that line of thinking now for us. We are changed, and no matter hard you want health and happiness for us, we cannot “change back.” Many of us don’t want to “change back,” because cancer has made us more fully who we are. And that’s not always likeable or easy to take.

Tough. Deal with it.

Cancer is not “distant” to us. That would mean we’re detached from it. Cancer is personal. And no amount of therapy, personal growth, survivorship, unfolding life circumstances, and persuasion from you will change that. We will not have it dismissed. That doesn’t mean we can’t joke about it, with even gallows humor, but to assume that we have gotten past it, to deny that it happened to us, for, among other reasons, your personal comfort, is an unrealistic disservice to us.

And we deserve much better service than that, thank you very much.

Copyright © 2022 by Sheryle Cruse

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